During our classes readings of Mead, we learned about the 'I' and the 'Me' and how they function with each other to make up a person's personality.
"The 'Me' is what is learned in interaction with others and (more generally) with the environment:...By contrast, 'the 'I' is the response of the individual to the attitude of the community". ( Inghilleri, From Subjective Experience to Cultural Change)With that in mind, we can gather that the 'Me' and 'I' should co-exist in a sense. Though, some people don't believe there is an 'I' inside of us, and we are all just products of the social influences we grow up around. I will agree that humans are mainly made up of the 'Me' and are shaped largely due to the influences around them. The question I would have to then ask, is if that is the case, why aren't we all marching around in single file and handling things like a hive mind? If there was no sense of individual self, we would all just be exactly the same as people in our surroundings are. For some reason, there is something that shines through social standards at times, and enables you to be different than everyone else around you.
"According to Mead, there would be no possibility of personality without both the 'I' and the 'Me'." (Mead, Morris, Mind, Self, and Society from the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist)Everyone's personalities are different. In the new age of social media, the margins of how different everyone is has definitely decreased. To give an example, I for one believe that the 'I' shines through in music tastes. To use myself as an example. I was raised in the country, and never heard any music genre other than country until I was about 15. I heard a rap song on the radio and instantly loved everything about it. I had never been exposed to that type of music in my life, yet somehow the enjoyment of it was strong enough to pull me away from my social norm, and listen to it regardless of what others thought of me. I know this isn't a constant with everyone, but everyone has their own music tastes. There is a lot of overlap, but I feel that is a product of the artist to consumer ratio.
Social media is a platform that enables mass amounts of people to be able to communicate with each other at the same time. With all of the interactions that take place on social media, it is easy to forget that it is truly an amazing feat, and a feat that might trigger some of the more natural instincts of our brains.
"When people are part of a group, they often experience deindividuate, they are less likely to follow normal restraints and inhibitions and more likely to lose their sense of individual identity. Groups can generate a sense of emotional excitement, which can lead to the provocation of behaviors that a person would not typically engage in if alone." (Avant, examining the mob mentality)Social Media has seem to form into a certain type of mentality. It is a huge part of almost everyone's daily lives, and there is no doubt our world revolves around it. Just take a step back and think what our world would be like without Social Media. Our world wouldn't be nearly as diverse and information might not be as user friendly as it is now. We are going to move on to an example of when Social Media can trigger our natural group mentality.
Now the interesting thing is if you look at one of the NPR stories that we read for class, it detailed the account of this mass following behind Scott Simon on Twitter when he was accounting the last days with his dying mother. This registered emotionally with his followers, who were all replying to his tweets, giving their condolences. The harsh fact of life is that people die everyday. Though, there was something different in particular about Scott Simon's story. There were enough people that knew about this particular death and all offered their respects, which then drew a large sum of people doing the same. For that moment regardless if the people in that group knew him personally, we do what we know is socially acceptable. Social media opens the door for a lot more of these types of interactions due to the large number of people that can all mingle at the same time.
I think before social media, the 'Me' and 'I' parts of you spent a lot more time in sync, because it wasn't as common to get caught up in a large group of people, and lose the 'I'. With Social Media, those opportunities present themselves more often, since it has the tendency to move through fads and different internet challenges that draw in a large amount of people. With our society being so caught up in what the 'Me' is doing, we are slowly losing room for our 'I'.
Sources:
Wikipedia contributors. "'I' and the 'me'." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 28 Dec. 2018. Web. 27 Jan. 2019.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/07/30/207032871/on-twitter-scott-simon-s-long-goodbye-to-his-mother
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