Napoléon Bonaparte was a French statesman whose influence over European and global affairs made him one of history’s most notorious and controversial leaders. His political and cultural legacy is still relevant almost 200 years after his death. And he accomplished all this without access to the internet. If he had used social media we would all be speaking French today!
I was born in a time when there weren’t any mobile phones, nor internet, nor personal computers. But, in my early twenties, almost everyone I knew had a mobile phone, and most people had computers at home. The internet revolution was about to start and change our lives forever.
In spite of all these technological advances and the influence that they had on our culture and in our lives, none of them changed the way we see life as social media did. And when mobile phones became smarter, we had in our hands the power to communicate without limits, to learn anything we wanted to and to conquer the world.
Social media brought people together and in today’s society time and distance are no longer barriers. You can connect with anyone, anytime, anywhere, which makes it the perfect tool for bringing the world together. But, somehow, it has also evolved into a parallel universe, some sort of upside-down, where your best friends are people that you have never seen in person and your real-life friends are not relevant if they are not online; a world where brands measure the success of their political statements in sales and not in how they are making this a better world.
Lately, I’m getting a bit overwhelmed by social media. Everyone else seems to be doing better, having more fun or being more successful altogether. Of course, I know that it’s all fake, but it doesn’t help with the self-imposed challenges that sometimes make their way into our minds and numb our efforts to move forward. "My work is not good enough", "What if nobody likes what I do?", "What if they say no?"... all irrational fears but all fed by how perfect everyone else’s lives or careers seem to be.
Social media is anything but ‘social’ these days. It is very alienating and it has taken control of both our personal and work lives to the point where we now do things just because they would look good online. Napoleon would have thrived in this environment. In spite of allegedly having so many complexes and of being looked down on by his peers, he got to be one of the most influential persons in history. Imagine how much more he could have accomplished if only he had had Instagram?
Or, would it have been his doom? Perhaps all his self-doubts would have been magnified by seeing online everything that he was not. We will never know. What I would like to find out is what would happen if we take all the power that we have in our hands these days and use it to do some good instead of just to pretend that we are cool. I bet not even Napoleon would be able to defeat us.
Photo credit: your typical restaurant bathroom selfie.