There was an experiment with chimpanzees some time ago which demonstrated a distinct limitation in their decision making process. Chimps can’t plan ahead. The experiment was as follows. The chimps were presented with two unequal piles of M&Ms, which they love. At first, they were given the first pile that they pointed to, and they quickly learned to point at the larger pile. The second phase of the experiment reversed the result of pointing at a pile. However, the chimps were unable to reliably learn to point at smaller pile. The poor simians were distraught even before they were presented with the smaller pile. They knew as soon as they had pointed they had made a mistake, showing that their mistake was not from lack of understanding, but a lack of planning.

The reason chimpanzees and other simians have trouble making decisions like this is that they have a smaller temporal lobe. So what does this have to do with social media? My claim is that we humans have limitations, too. Larger than a chimp’s though it may be, our temporal lobe can only handle so much planning ahead and analyzing consequences. Already there are spheres in which our ability to plan ahead is vastly overshadowed by the complexity of the situation. I posit that while dealing with Facebook and its repercussions might be within the cognitive grasp of the average Homo Sapiens, we may be fast approaching our limit. One proviso, I believe, is that our intellectual limit is extended through education, something that there is very little of on the matter of social media and the impact of internet in general.

When I started using Facebook, some four years ago, I was already reaching some minor level of maturity. Despite not knowing the right set of limitations for Facebook, I knew that one should not spend more than a few hours a day wasting time on the internet, and that a certain level of privacy was a good thing. I wouldn’t say that I was socially taught in its intricacies, but being a student and knowing certain limitations I was able to fit it into my life without too much of an upheaval.

My brother, on the other hand, does not have the prerequisite learning to assimilate Facebook usage into his life. He had never experienced the impact of not having studied for an exam until last week. He does not have the maturity to think about where his personal details are being used or what impression people who don’t know him are building up from his profile. One might argue that he has not had the experience of being an alcoholic, nor has he the maturity to truly consider the impact of a life without a school education, yet he remains somewhat vigilant at school and is certainly not an alcoholic. The difference between his seemingly wise attitude towards school and alcohol and his immature attitude towards Facebook and chat is that the former was an early topic in his education.

The current generation of children, those for whom the internet was already common place as far back as they could remember, have neither the maturity to fit internet into their lives nor have they been sufficiently educated in its use. Like our chimpanzees, they try to repatriate instant actions with longer term consequences on an order of magnitude greater complexity to anything the common man has faced in history. Social upheaval and change has changed the course of previous generations too. Through the turmoil of change, new social hierarchies arise. Those with the savvy to fully take advantage of emerging technologies have become an elite. Bloggers, trend setters, media tycoons, marketing geniuses, and the occasional creator of memes achieve fame fortune, and most importantly, a livelihood, whilst common people find their lives eaten up by uncontrolled use of channels of instant gratification. I refer to more than just the internet. The iPhenomenon and the enormous explosion of other consumer goods has turned the heads of the common man, myself included. Yet little or no education exists for those without the means to ‘have it all’ to order their lives against the increasing demands of consumerism.

Social media is only one face of the beast that has reared its heads. I presume that the first few generations brew masters spent a large portion of their lives wasted without quite grasping the long term repercussions or how to handle it. We are the first real consumers. We, and our children, and our children’s children’s children will spend a large portion of our lives consuming without quite grasping the consequences. Like drugs and alcohol, social media and consumer goods can greatly enhance our lives in small quantities, but without the knowledge to properly integrate them into our daily existence, over use can and does consume our lives.

The end is not nigh. We just got to the station a decade after the last bus about a century before the next one. Wanna try and carpool?