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Who is “thinking” in the social media postings?

Francisco Miraval

It is obvious that technology has changed our lives. It is however less obvious what has been the impact of technology in our personal identity. Perhaps it is not really us who is doing the “thinking” when something is published in any social networking site.

Let’s try to explain what we are saying. We know, for example, that online search engines are now a kind of “external memory” for many people who are no longer memorizing information who previously had to be memorized because now they can access that same information instantaneously when they needed.

If online search engines are now our “external memory,” what are we externalizing with our posting on social media? Perhaps we could say that social media is the externalization of our private thoughts and, more specifically, the externalization of our stream of consciousness.

Each of us has his/her own stream of consciousness, that constant flux of ideas and thoughts that is always there, except when we are asleep or when some other circumstance makes us unconscious.

If we compare that constant and unpredictable flow of thoughts and images appearing in our mind with the constant and unpredictable appearance of images, videos, and words in social media, the similarities are clear.

For that reason, we can say that social media is the externalization of our own stream of consciousness. Now, if online search engines mean we don’t need to memorize whatever we used to memorize, are social media sites an indication we don’t need to think thought we used to have?

We could argue, for example, that the “calculated spontaneity” of social media posting and the quality of those posting clearly show that (in most cases) shows no previous reflection before a particular message was posted. Whatever comes to mind is published almost without thinking.

However, we are not talking here about an individual mind. It is estimated that 2 billion people all over the world use 3 billion intelligent phones and tablets always connected with social media sites, constantly uploading images and videos.

In other words, our stream of consciousness has been not only externalized, but also globalized. The impact of the globalization of our stream of thought is now beginning to be analyzed and understood. (There was a time when telephones and airplanes were thought to be just toys. It takes to understand the full impact of new technologies.)

At the same time, it is already evident that what was once internal and personal it is not external and shared. And what was once individual now it is global. Perhaps that’s why when log into a social media site, the first question asked is, “What’s in your mind?”

Therefore, we can ask: What unifies the stream of externalized and global thoughts? Who/what is interrupting my thoughts to think his/hers/its thoughts? Who/what is that global mind?  Each of us feel our thoughts are in each case “ours.” Then, who feels the global, external thoughts are his/hers? Who is then the thinking mind behind social media?

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