Nope, that’s not a typo in the headline. The social media bubble has a lot more in common with pocket gardens than you might think.
THE HEART OF THE PROBLEM
Have a family history of heart failure? Consider your options in Colonial America. With no medication, your flabby heart muscles would constantly be working overtime to supply blood flow to your body.
What’s more, due to your weak heart, your body would become congested with fluid – a condition called dropsy. The swelling may have become so bad that your doctor would literally have to drain the fluid. And in 18th century America, this procedure was most unpleasant.
THE PURPLE FOXGLOVE
In J. Worth Estes’s book, Hall Jackson and the Purple Foxglove: Medical Practice and Research in Revolutionary America 1760-1820, Estes takes a close look at the use of the drug digitalis purpurea (purple foxglove) in the colonies.
Digitalis first started gaining traction in Europe, then migrated to the Americas. Extracted from the foxglove’s poisonous leaves, digitalis proved to be particularly effective in treating congestive heart failure. By stimulating the heart’s muscles to contract, it controlled the abnormal heart rhythm, causing the heart to beat more strongly.
THE DIGITALIS BUBBLE BURSTS
Doctors quickly caught on to the new wonder medication. They saw miraculous results in patients who might otherwise have died. They wrote to each other in excitement about their successes.
But then the usual thing happened when a new drug is discovered. Doctors began to hope that it could do more than treat heart failure. They began prescribing it for all their patients – for fainting fits, for unspecified maladies and, most especially, for consumption (tuberculosis).
Of course, the problem was, digitalis couldn’t cure tuberculosis any more than cod liver oil could. It did nothing, or worse, caused death when the dose was too high. Soon the popularity of digitalis in treatment plummeted, even for heart failure. It took years for doctors to resurrect it as a viable option.
MONITORING THE SOCIAL MEDIA BUBBLE
Seems to me we’re seeing a very similar pattern in the 21st century. We become very excited about the new wonder tools – Dot.com, social media – and then expect them to be a universal panacea. Like our wonder drugs, we want our websites to quadruple our sales and social media to connect us instantly with trillions of people.
But in Estes’s book, he points out that humans follow the same trajectory with most discoveries:
- We gradually learn about the benefits of an item (Twitter, Facebook, Digitalis…) as information is passed around small networks.
- The pace quickens as the networks expand.
- We soon reach a peak when we think it will solve all ills (so we pay obscene amounts when it goes public on the stock market).
- We’re disgusted when it doesn’t.
- And then, eventually, we return to a more even keel.
LESSONS OF DIGITALIS FOR SOCIAL MEDIA
Does that mean we should ignore the current value social media? Of course not. That’s like ignoring the very real benefits that digitalis had for heart failure.
The trick is to remember that there are limitations – even for social media. Social media is not a substitute for human contact, despite what the pundits would have us believe. Nor is it the only treatment available for an ailing business, though it may be just the right one for your condition.
Until, perhaps, the next wonder drug comes along…
STILL SEARCHING FOR THE BEST SOCIAL MEDIA CURES?
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Posted on July 22, 2011
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