Why Teens May Need a Circus Clown Face as the Right Social Media Symbol?
The path of awakening is not about becoming who you are. Rather it is about unbecoming who you are not. Albert Schweitzer
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“Imagine, you are just 14 years old, yet your brain is wired for positive feedback which gets a dopamine spike with every click, every buzz, to keep the story fresh and wanting more. How could it be any other way? Your habit of posing and posting becomes like an itch, somebody else’s itch, but you got to keep scratching it, painful as it may be at times, because sometimes you get the word LIKE.” excerpt: Teen Girl Faces Time in the Sand
Do you believe that symbols have the power to communicate? What can you say when words are inadequate to represent complex meanings especially in today’s situations or outcomes caused by epic forces that are hard to describe if limited by words and given or implied interpretations?
Would you agree that one of the strongest social forces overwhelming much of our culture is social mass media?
So, what would a symbol of social media look like? Why would a single reference be helpful to explain our society, especially for teens?
Connecting Abstractions and Symbols
Symbols are an interesting powerful medium that can be used to express all facets of human endeavor. They can message important meanings to evoke profound emotions and memories. Our complex reality can be expressed and objectified into a simpler way for more holistic parameters.
Our first encounter and learning about the world of objects are through our senses like seeing, hearing, touching, etc. Then more concrete experiences and often specific words can manifest more abstract meanings that, over time, can be integrated to form a concept or show the value of a lesson or moral.
For example, the word love may undergo many transformations through time before the abstraction is made real … “ I love you” and a heart symbol signifies that.
So, why consider reality in abstract terms when there are no physical referents?
