What Is Social Media?

Is it technology?  Business?  Advertising?  A picture album?  A religion?

Many people are talking about Facebook losing stock value at the moment.  Some salient points:

See, there's another selfish thing about the social network: It doesn't add much of anything to the world. Facebook claims its mission is to connect people. But, as Haislip notes (and as The Atlantic's Alexis Madrigal noted before him), boiled down, it just sells advertising.

and not very well, either:

 "The problem with Facebook and other social media is that they were not designed to carry advertising," writes Ad Age's Rance Crain, explaining that businesses don't see Facebook's utility in ad buys. General Motors, for example, pulled its $10 million ad campaign because it didn't really see Facebook as an advertising platform. 

Social media is a religion.  You don't buy anything via it.  It does not make life any easier.  It gives you a sense of belonging and comfort.  You exchange self selected private information for others self selected private information in some sort of blind faith that this process will make you happier and perhaps even a better, well-connected person.  It isn't something you buy or sell.  It isn't a tool one uses to say, transport from one place to another, or to cool your drinks, or write a paper.  It isn't really even entertainment in the way books or movies or tv.  Utterances and pictures are not acts of creation.  No one pays for it in the way people pay for books, movies, and tv.  People "belong" to it, in the way you belong to a church.  You "join" Facebook like you would join Scientology.  It makes you feel connected and gives you solace in a lonely world.  And if it doesn't achieve it, well, at least 900 million aren't achieving it also.

The moment I realized this was many years ago, but I was only able to put it into words recently.  When I was first invited to join Friendster and later Facebook and turned it down, the reactions of other people were very bizarre.  In normal circumstances, if someone offers you a piece of chocolate and you turn it down, no one says anything or thinks anything of it.  They assume you aren't hungry or don't like chocolate and everyone moves on.  Or when someone says "do you want to see a movie on friday night," it might be filled with subtext and innuendo because it is asking someone out on a date, and you still might respond "no thanks" and there might be all sorts of neurosis and explanations - "could they be seeing someone else?"  "maybe if I asked differently" blah, blah, blah.  The exchange could be quite complex, actually, but people still accept the answer as meaning what was said, although the reasons might be varied.  But when it comes to saying "no thanks" to Facebook the reactions are stunned disbelief "Why not?" or a deterministic "Oh, you'll join eventually, everyone does it" or like you are trying to make some sort of rebellious political point "Oh, I get it, you're one of those people."  When actually, on the surface, it is a pretty uncomplicated decision.  So why is it such a big deal to so many people?  Because not participating in Facebook is sacrilege, because it is saying "I don't believe in Facebook."  There is no neutral.  You either believe or you are a heretic to be distrusted.  Well, count me as a heretic.  I wear the badge proudly.  I'm not a Scientologist either.