Thursday, July 30, 2020

Social Media Was Supposed To Connect Us Not Divide Us



Social Media Was Supposed To Connect Us Not Divide Us

I’m glad I use Facebook for what it is supposed to be for, post pictures of myself during my life, and talking about robots! Having no drama in my life is the way to live. My advice if you want to debate somebody, debate the person in real life. It’s almost impossible to debate someone with text. Human beings use nonverbal clues to give us information. I would suspect it was rare anybody changes their opinion due to a social media post. Enjoy your life instead of living on social media! 

When social media started, no one knew what to do, so there were a lot of pet photos. People would write jokes on their friend's walls. They laughed and move on to the next joke and smile at the post the next day. It was a simpler time for sure.

Jump to today, divisive posts are common, posts are made to antagonize their friends or frenemies, an innocent post that was taken out of context leads to a comment battle, suffice it to say common ground on social media between friends is rare. Why did this happen? How did this happen? Is there any way to change this?

All technologies overtime evolve, from the earliest computers to the fastest computers to cell phones to the smartphones that we all carry around, how we view and use these devices affects society and our culture. Technology has allowed all of us to make content relatively easy. A simple photograph, a short blog post, a short video, are all a few clicks away to produce on our smartphones. Once making content became easy for population, meant that every person with a smartphone is now a newspaper, a radio station, a TV station, a commentator on any subject, and a host of other media entities.

Frankly, it's just too easy to make content today. Which could be used for good. People today are able to share their voices on many issues, that in the past, only a few close friends would have heard. Was that a better system? To share your strong beliefs with the people that know you the best. Honestly, most of us have friends on social media we have never met in person. Or if we do know them, we only know them on a surface level. Perhaps having a long-term friendship with a person can help you understand their point of view better than a few words on a social media page form a person you barely know.

As I stated earlier, it's rare to change someone's opinion or believes with a few words on social media. My suggestion is the talk to your friends directly. On the phone right now during COVID-19 or using some video communication software. Of course, once COVID-19 is over the best option is to talk to your friends face to face. Seeing a person's body language, hearing their tone when they express an opinion, a brief smile or frown as a debate their points, all are missing with words typed on a social media page.

Also, it's harder to let your friends know that you care about them virtually. In real life, sometimes a brief smile, a handshake, a hug, even a quick wink, can let your friends know how much you really care about them as a person. Emojis can only help out so much to share this vital information online.

I would ask every person that posts controversial topics on their social media pages to really consider what they're trying to do. If they want to anger a certain population of people, is this really the best format to achieve your results? What's the purpose of your post? Could you reword your post in a positive manner and achieve better results?

Love is better than hate. Being friends is better than being enemies. Talking is better than screaming. Listening is better than closing off communication. Caring for your friends and family is better than not caring for them.

Please go out there and enjoy your life. Care for yourself. Help others with every opportunity that you can. And smile. Having the chance to live on this third rock from the Sun It's not something everybody has the chance to do. And in three million years will anybody even care what you are thinking? 

Anyways, if you haven’t seen The Rise Of The Robots go to 

Rock and Roll!!!!!!!

No comments:



Blog Archive

Do you Know Herbert Midgley?