Social Media is Not the Enemy
[Music]
people
are scared of change and there is a good
reason for it
research in neuroscience says that
uncertainty
and change is registered in our brain in
the same way
as error is so if you think about it the
natural tendency
that we have is to eliminate the error
to eliminate the uncertainty
now technology has always been a huge
driver of change if you think about
cars modern medicine antibiotics
in the beginning people weren’t that
keen on these changes
but eventually in hindsight i think we
can all agree that they’ve largely been
good
for our society now right now
as i stand here the situation is
completely different when it comes to
social media
and the script was kind of flipped here
because initially we welcome social
media because it’s this force that is
connecting people around the globe
everyone’s going to be friends
everyone’s going to know what we are up
to it’s great
right but not so much rigged elections
distorted beauty standards privacy
invasions
the monopolistic tendencies of the big
tech ruined relationships
social media has gone from friend to foe
in a finger click
and i wasn’t sent here by facebook or
tick tock to say hey social media is
amazing
but i just disagree with the way that we
respond to it because i think that
we treat social as this uncertainty that
we want to eliminate
right because we don’t know how these
algorithms work we don’t know where they
come from
but to me the response that we have is
just to close our eyes and pretend that
social media is not happening
it’s just wrong and it’s going to set
you back and i have an example of how
this is happening and this comes from my
family
i’m an older brother and i have a
teenage sister right and
every time she misbehaves like i don’t
know doesn’t clean her room
does badly at school or does some
teenage stuff that i don’t know
my mom takes away my sister’s smartphone
taking away her social media
and the thing is she takes it away with
the same face that she used to make
when she wouldn’t let me go out with my
friends back in ukraine where i was
growing up
but even though for her it’s the same
action
the result is completely different
because right now if you take the phone
away
from a person from generation zed then
you don’t just take away
their connectivity with their friends
you take away everything
because social media has entered pretty
much every sector of their lives just
think about it
on pinterest is where you go to find
inspiration for your homework or just
for yourself
facebook is where you go to check in
with friends right twitter is where you
go to find out what’s happening
in the world tick tock is where you go
to have fun and then uh something like
is where you go to grow your network and
further your career
so taking away the smartphone is taking
away everything from these kids
as they’ll be quick to tell you and i
think it’s not just about kids
because the way we have built this
relationship
with social media i don’t think it works
for us
because people are scared of uncertainty
that it brings
this is why we have the screen time
right this is why we take digital
detoxes this is why we’re proud of being
off the grid of being offline
right because we’re not controlled by
these algorithms that that way we regain
control by eliminating this this
uncertainty but to me this is wrong
and if you do this then this is going to
cost you
now i’m not going to stand here and tell
you that there is money in social media
that conversation was
had five years ago right we all know
that jeffree star has a 14 million
dollar mansion we all know that david
dobrik has given away teslas every day
to his followers all of that stuff right
there is money there
but that’s just the tip of the iceberg i
don’t want to tell you about the
demilious or the kardashians i can talk
about myself
right i moved from ukraine 10 years ago
went to law school i was working as a
corporate consultant
and then suddenly i have developed this
interest in social media and
communication
so i started a podcast uh that no one
listened to aside from my grandma who
was just viewing it so that i feel good
about my views and then i discovered
this platform called tick tock where i
thought i’d be making videos about how
it’s good to read books
and i brought this to my teenage sister
who thought
that it was a horrible idea who thought
that i was too old and too boring to be
on the platform
now in hindsight i guess she was wrong
because right now i have 2 million
followers on the platform and more than
1 billion
times my videos have been viewed and
since then
uh a few months ago i kind of had a
realization looking at my
bank account statement that i’m making
three times my corporate salary
through my work in social media so then
i quit my job
and started an agency that helps
businesses and organizations
reach gen z now i know what you’re
thinking there’s still
a lot of racism on social media there’s
still classes there’s still the pretty
privilege
that my grandma think applies to me
although not everyone agrees but
this is the representation of our
society right but my story
of finding myself on social finding a
part of myself on social media
is actually much more common than you
think
and there is real money there there is
15
billion valuation that influencer
economy is expected to reach by 2022
this number increasing to 25 billion by
2025
making it one of the largest sectors in
our economy in the us
and in europe and of course there is
many professions that
earn money private equity banking all of
that stuff
but they aren’t as desired as a career
in social media is
latest research conducted conducted in
the us
shows that in the us for the teens there
video blogger is their dream
job and it’s a similar situation here in
europe
so people well kids and teenagers dream
of making social media their career and
this dream
is actually beaten the dream of becoming
an athlete
the dream of becoming an actor or an
actress or an astronaut
the moonshot careers of the past and the
good news is that
it’s much more attainable than the other
ones right if you think about becoming
an athlete
that’s years of tough brutal training
uh when you’re a kid and then an element
of luck to get drafted
to become an astronaut you need a
certain lung capacity so there are some
kind of dna
limitations right when it comes to
social media i’m not saying that it’s a
walk in the park to become an influencer
and of course you’re competing with
pretty much everyone
with barriers to entry being super low
but it’s definitely more doable
than me becoming an nba player right and
just to put it in perspective for you
there are 568 people
who have gone to space in the history of
humankind
- right now
just on instagram there are 500 000
influencers right this minute so this is
much more doable and more desirable at
the same time
of course some people still want to be
lawyers engineers doctors
sometimes to please their immigrant
parents sometimes for their own kind of
internal and innate drivers and my point
is that even if you’re going for a
traditional career
you can’t escape social media and if you
do
that puts you at a disadvantage because
there are lawyers
and doctors and engineers who are making
videos on tech talk furthering their
career opportunities building their
network increasing their media presence
and charging their clients more even
elon musk if you think about it
the richest person on the planet is
using his account on
twitter to make nation state level plays
in the market right so everyone from
elon musk
to grand fluencers who are kind of
grandmas and grandpas who are having fun
on the internet and sustaining their
living
make social media part of their life
part of their job
right and then to me i think that if you
don’t do that
you’re just missing out and the other
day i was working on
helping scientists who actually have
created the kobit vaccine
understand tik tok and understand how to
fight misinformation
on this platform and when i was doing
that i thought how ubiquitous
social media has become and i think the
pandemic has only accelerated this
process
now we all remember the stories of the
first lockdowns when
the chefs whose restaurants have shut
down went on instagram live streams
to show people their recipes and show
their work when airbnb
hosts who couldn’t rent out their
apartments had to do virtual tours of
their place
on instagram live on tech talk live so
right now the society is moving towards
this virtual
commercial model right and if you think
about the
revolution in virtual work that was
supposed to be taking place for
years it was achieved in just a matter
of months online schooling
none of this is going back okay and i
think right now
as far as your skill set goes it’s very
important to stand out
right in the crowd and i think that
crafting a perfect dm
on instagram or any other social media
platform addressing the person you
admire professionally is a more
important skill than having a great
cover letter or a polished resume
so i’m not saying that social media is
good i’m not saying that everyone should
be on it
i’m just asking a question next time
when you take
away the smartphone of your kid or if
you just open your screen time to limit
it
further ask yourself a question why are
you doing this
and if you’re doing this because you’re
scared of the uncertainty that it brings
i implore you to get over that because
we all
need to learn to live and thrive with
social media
and we need you there thank you