Is Social Media becoming like High School?

We have talked before about how people can be “so much cooler online” and create whatever persona they wish, but is this causing a step back in time?  Is our ability to become bigger and better online making us like high schoolers?

Social portals (especially twitter) are being bombarded with messages such as “@XYZ has a twitter grade of 98/100″ and “I have just received my millionth follower” and “I have 2 billion friends on Facebook” and so on.  Now a little gloating is fine, but what is the need for intimidation (or intwimidation as one Gearyite likes to say)?

Apply this idea to your high school experience.  Were you the popular kid, the captain of the football team, the homecoming queen or were you more of a loner, hung out with less people, had unappreciated talents?  It shouldn’t matter if you fell into that first group or the second - you were a person (lets hope anyway).  Scoring the winning touchdown of the homecoming game shouldn’t be more important than winning the science fair or playing in the band.  So why would having 2 billion online friends be so much better than having 50?

Many people look back on high school with terrible memories of the cliques and how they were treated.  At some point I would like to think we all grow up and learn that everyone has something to offer - be it a beautiful painting, good advice, interesting tweets or some other gift that may yet to be discovered.  It is possible that some of the people who pump themselves up in social spaces were the kids that did not get noticed.  However, if that is the case why attempt to make others feel like they aren’t good enough or don’t belong?

Don’t discredit someone online who has few followers or friends, they may have wanted it that way or they just joined the site.  Social media is about connection.  So make a new friend today and remember to be nice.