Tag: LinkedIn

Why has LinkedIn become so weird? – The Guardian

Much has been written about how tech is changing how we see ourselves and each other. Instagram pushing unattainable beauty standards and lifestyles, Facebook fake news chipping away at people’s belief in institutions, an X format that reduces a complex thought to 280 characters (no wonder nuance is impossible!), turning all of us into outrage addicts. Dating apps have commodified and gamified those most human phenomena: love and desire. Yet somehow LinkedIn has been left out of the spotlight. But here’s my contention: I think it is doing something to us, shifting how we see our accomplishments, what we assign value to and what we don’t. And perhaps most chilling of all, it promotes the idea that we are all just brands, and we must always – always – be selling. Apparently, LinkedIn is now being used as a full social network, a place where people talk about their marriages, make friends and maybe even date. What does that tell us about our lives outside work? Do we even still have lives outside work at all?