At this year’s Social Good Summit, Doctor Deepak Chopra discussed the inevitable power of social media, and why and how this technological accomplishment will be the next phase of humanity. Mashable featured a video of Dr. Chopra’s speech and discussion at their Social Good Summit. In his speech, he explains that social media has made humanity more connected than ever. He states, “At the most fundamental level, we are not just connected, we are inseparable.”
Social media brings this feeling of “togetherness” because the human mind thrives on emotions and feelings. Dr. Chopra explains that “feelings propagate through social networks; social networks are an extension of our minds, they regulate the flow of information in our world right now.”
Although he is certain that social media is the next phase of humanity, he states that true social connection could never be overtaken by technology. Chopra believes that technology will never replace true relationships, feelings, or emotions. However, he explains that social media has the ability to bring peace to our world because it will always operate at a global level.
The potential power of social media is infinite. If we think back to what it has accomplished just over the past five years, it truly does make us think about and question the current state of humanity. Occupy Wall Street would never have grown the way it did if it wasn’t for our social networking capabilities. Angry about the conditions in Tunisia and Egypt, the Canadian publication Adbusters became inspired to utilize Facebook and Twitter to put out calls to connect people together in order to #OccupyWallStreet. This movement became huge and spread across the entire world.
In more recent news, the Global Poverty Project put together a music festival in Central Park called the Global Citizen Festival, and was committed to having concertgoers “earn” their tickets by “tweeting, posting on Facebook and getting involved with Global Poverty’s mission via other social means” (Mashable). By spreading the word of Global Poverty Project’s mission through social networking, users were then entered into a ticket lottery, and received free tickets to the festival if they earned at least three points by actively social networking. The COO of Global Poverty Project, Simon Moss explained that their goal was to work towards “creating an entire wave for people to be able to join dots across the whole ink of issues related to extreme poverty, to earn rewards and say, ‘Technology is a wonderful enabler and way for us to build community, to bring people together around a common purpose and help us end extreme poverty.” I believe this statement is resonated throughout Dr. Chopra’s speech, and explains precisely why he believes social media is the next phase or step to better humanity.
The possibilities are truly endless, and as Dr. Chopra says, the powerful force of social media is inevitable. Can this bold statement be made; does social networking have the ability to harness and guide social change? I suppose the power is in our hands. To watch the full video of Dr. Chopra’s speech, visit the article published on Mashable HERE!
