Social Media, Baby Boomers and Thinking by Slogan
Back in 1948, George Orwell, born Eric Arthur Blair, wrote a book called Nineteen Eight Four.
For many Baby Boomers it described a time they did not want to see actually happen. A time of war, constant surveillance and never-ending mind control through messages broadcast continually.
In the book 1984, life was controlled. People were classified and sorted into classes. You could not move out of your classification easily, if at all. Big Brother was watching you. Your every action was judged by the Politically correct machine and failure to comply brought dire consequences.
Life was lived by slogans, mantras and prescription.
Fortunately, 1984 did not happen in 1984 but Big Brother does watch us through CCTV cameras and satellites today; watching our every move.
Our media blasts out constantly what we should think. Pap, in the form of reality television and talk shows, tells us how we should behave and the way we should act.
And we eat is up. We blog about it. We tweet about reality television and the talk shows and the stars. (Lady Gaga and Justin Beber have the largest Twitter followings)
Granted their followers are unlikely to be Baby Boomers but Ellen De Generes and Oprah Winfrey along with Obama, all 3 Baby Boomers, are in the top 10 on the most followed on Twitter.
And Baby Boomers let the world of slogan and social media and pap happen. As a matter of fact, we caused some of it to happen.
But Baby Boomers also experienced in rebellion – Kent State, the Vietnam War, Flower Power.
Baby Boomers know that change can happen when they come together.
So watch, Baby Boomers may have created the current world version of 1984 but they also prevented the book version happening for over 20 years.
Big Brother, watch out!
And the way Baby Boomers will change the current social media hype is by saying – been there, done that let’s move on. (Oops another slogan).
Roberta is a keynote speaker, facilitator and mentor. You can find her through http://www.budvietas.com which links to her blogs, articles, ebooks and speaking.
cc licensed flickr photo shared by AliceNWondrlnd
=) social media is a big and powerful tool to control people’s mind…just like any mass media in the past =)…but we are sure to survive and some of us even will manage to stay humans =)))