The Good Side of Social Media

 There have always been two things that are true of me: 1. I have always been late to participating in trends and 2. I am a very private person.  Both of those things are not conducive to being a social media type of person.  I always perceived social media as more negative than positive.  I saw lots of fighting, opinions, and downright nastiness towards strangers. That isn't me off of a computer, and it is certainly not me behind screen, either.  Also, if you deal with difficult people in real life (as we all do), you may not want to subject yourself to that on an extended basis.  I did participate in message boards.  (For those young people reading, a message board was a place where you could interact with other Internet users lol.  Just kidding!  You probably know, but they are pretty much a thing of the past)  I enjoyed message boards because you talk about literally anything which interested you with other like-minded people.  Or not.  You might have shared a common hobby or interest, and all kinds of discussions broke out about other topics. Message boards afforded you privacy. If you chose to put pictures up of yourself, it was completely your choice. You could interact with others at your discretion.  I did meet some nice people over the years, but message boards started to die out in lieu of platforms like MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter.  I resisted for a long time, even though it meant I couldn't keep up with people like others do. It wasn't worth it to me to lose my privacy.  I did start reading some public pages, especially Twitter.  There were sportscasters in particular who provided up-to-date information that I appreciated.  It was nice to quickly find information.  Most of my family encouraged me to just sign up, never post anything, just get some information.

Fast forward to summer 2020.  I was grieving, having a really bad day, and I made a crazy for me decision.  I joined Twitter.  I joked with myself and said that people have done a lot worse.  I never intended to really post anything, just get some more streamlined information. But,  I got the opportunity to meet lots of nice Mets fans there.  I got to follow some of my favorite authors who have Twitter pages, I got much more up-to-the minute astronomy news than I ever did before.  And I started posting!  It was like the world's biggest message board.  Literally anything I could think of I could post about.  I have always enjoyed, even without a social media account, reading up-to-date reactions from people about TV shows, sporting events, and the news. On 9/11, I found myself drawn to the countless thousands of stories that were being posted, pictures of people at the World Trade Center during happier times.  It was like I could experience a collective experience with many others who felt the same way I did.  On January 6, I got on with thousands more, reading their real-time reactions to what was happening.  I really do like to connect with others over shared experiences.  I suspect a lot of other people do as well.  And I had a way to do it.  All of these things are good things for me.  I also decided going into it that anything in life is what you make of it.  If things got too intense, I reserved the right not to participate in discussions, etc.  And even though I am passionate about politics, I limit myself because lord knows I have enough discussions off of the computer.

I am not sure how what thread or who I was reading, but I came across a Twitter user whose goal was to end homelessness.  He had studied the issue over years and was in the process of starting a non-profit to put a program into place.  I have been working with the homeless population as well as those who are living in poverty since I graduated high school.  The first thing I did when I graduated was take a weeklong trip to New York City.  I got to see firsthand the lives of those living on the streets in the largest city in our country. A city with so much wealth, yet there was an out-of-control homeless population for whom little was being done. And we certainly have this problem in every city, including my own. Through my previous employment, I got to work with those living in poverty.  Things have only gotten worse over this past year.  And things will continue unless we have visionaries who really want to tackle this problem. I was not sure of the name of the poster, I knew his Twitter name.  I followed him, and I really looked forward to hearing his proposals. He kept people up-to-date on the progress he was making on his non-profit becoming a reality.  I thought that perhaps in the future he would be a voice that we would hear more from.  Perhaps our paths would even cross in real life.

On Easter morning, I was reading Twitter when a post came in from our advocate friend.  As it turns out, his real name was Scott.  I do not know his last name, just that his name was Scott.  Scott's sister came onto Twitter to tell us that he had passed away overnight.  Even though I never met Scott, I felt quite saddened by the news.  Scott had a real vision, and he was working to make this world a better place.  Nobody really knows much about him, and we all were wondering what might have happened.  What I do know is that Scott indeed was a real person like all of us, and I also know that he was a very dedicated son.  He took care of his mother very well, helping her get a COVID vaccination and took care of her when she recently broke her ribs.  Scott shared all of those experiences with us.  I shared my sadness with Scott's sister and now, there are over 2,000 messages on that thread.  Scott and his life touched many people, even though most of us only knew him via social media.  I ended up gaining a lot of followers that day as well.  They all seemed to be kind, caring people who shared the same values as Scott.  I am sad for Scott's family that they will always associate a holiday with his passing.  

The truth is, every single one of us is a living, breathing person behind a screen.  Whereas many people see a user online maybe as their screen name, or someone living far from them, we are not.  Even though some people see an opportunity to be a prick, most of us are glad to connect with others. We can meet people with common interests, and it can turn into something good.  It did for me.  Social media in a very backwards way helped me navigate a very difficult time in my life.  I had always wanted to start a blog, and now I am doing so.  The world is big, and having the ability to connect with anyone anywhere is nothing short of amazing.  I am so glad that I made that crazy for me decision to join Twitter.  It really has been good.  It helped me connect with wonderful people like Scott.

Godspeed, Scott.  You touched the lives of many people in ways you probably did not understand.  Rest assured, we will continue the work that you started in your life.  May you rest in peace, and your spirit will certainly live on.  

The Impersonalization of Society

 You are reading this.  In my ideal world, you and I would be having this conversation in person.  We might be sitting in a small group, or maybe just face-to-face, but we would most definitely be in person.  Our country is still reeling from last week's attack of the Capitol.  Sadly, a lot of us knew this day was coming.  We started the long and slow descent into what culminated last week.  In 2020, parts of our country were literally set on fire.  There has been a slow burn of incivility, hostility, and anger brewing long before January 6.  Why?  There are no simple explanations as to how we became a split and hostile country.  I believe that there is not one clear reason; it is a number of things.  One of those things has been happening for a long time, and that has been how impersonal our society has become.  

My first job, like many, was at a retail store at the mall.  Believe me, there were times when civility did NOT reign supreme.  People were rude to me, demanding, yelling, treating me with disrespect.  They did the same thing to other shoppers-stealing their place in line, cutting in front of them, fighting over items, etc.  They trashed dressing rooms and did not bother to clean up after themselves, and occasionally they stole things from the store.  But at least we were doing that among each other.  Now, brick and mortal stores are struggling to survive.  As a teenager, I walked the malls on a Friday night with my big hair and shopped at Phar-Mor for my hair spray and at the Deb Shop so I could look good walking down the mall on a Friday night.  I drove by one of our two malls a few months ago, and it is laying in a pile.  It is gone, because people do not go to malls anymore.  They shop online.  Is it easy?  Yes.  Can you shop in your pajamas and not have to fix yourself up?  Yes.  Are you losing the ability to go out and shop because of that?  Yes.  And it is not limited to just retail stores.  You can purchase your groceries online and have them delivered to your house.  Or, you can pay a small charge and someone will shop for you, bring the groceries to your car, and you never have to get out.  You can look like an absolute slob and the only person that will see you up close is the person bringing the groceries to your car.  Now, I hate long lines at grocery stores and I hate big grocery stores.  But I also found a nice little locally owned market where I shopped before the pandemic started.  And when it is safe for all of us to go out again, I will happily shop there.  They know me by name, I know their names, too.  They know what I get when I go to the fresh food counter and do not even have to ask.  I feel happy every time I go there.  

The other part of our society that has changed, and which is more bothersome to me, is the increase of socialization online.  We are meant to be social creatures.  From an evolutionary perspective, our lives depend upon it.  Our survival before electric, shopping, etc. was to rely on each other.  We are still that way, but many groups of people are not gathering in person as they should.  That is especially true of our young people.  When we got together as teenagers, we were loud.  We were giggly teenage girls, or loud boys, sometimes a combination of both.  We liked going to the mall, or to the movies, or wherever.  There are no malls to go to anymore. I see teenagers now in my neighborhood just sitting around maybe on somebody's patio and all of them are on their phones.  They are not talking to each other, just on their phones. If you want a movie, instead of going to the movie theater you can just order it on demand and view it any time of the day or night you decide.  This is going to continue after the pandemic.  It is just not good for anyone's social development, especially those of our young people, to learn how to socialize using online platforms.  The best may be Facetime, where you can actually see people's faces, hear their tone of voice, etc.  But talking by text messages, by Twitter, etc. is not the best way to communicate.  The other concern is that anyone's online presence is as best as they allow themselves to be seen.  Psychologists have voiced their concerns that people can create any persona they want.  Look at me eating at the finest restaurants, on my vacation in the French Riviera, with my new car, etc.  You do not ever have to put pictures up of you and your spouse fighting, how lousy you look in the morning, when your child fell in a pool of mud, when you spilled a gallon of milk on your kitchen floor.  Anyone can create a false self, and social media has exploded that ability.

All of these things combined have created a monster, in my opinion.  The monster is that because we interact less and less with people, we somehow are either forgetting or intentionally treating others as if they are not human.  I talked about retail, and I was on the receiving end of that.  It is nothing new for people to treat someone they do not know without respect.  But you were always going to have "those people."  Now, it is a whole new level of disrespect.  Before platforms like MSN closed their comments, I would see things like "go kill yourself" "you can die now" "go throw yourself into the sea" and all sorts of other wishes.  Would you REALLY speak to someone you know like that?  In all of my days working with the public nobody ever said that to me.  But yet people think it is okay to speak to someone they do not know like that just because they can.  They do not see it as having any consequences.  The truth is, there is always someone on the other side of the screen and that person does have feelings.  A friend of mine used to say to me, "You can't take anything online seriously."  I disagreed, and I still do.  Very sadly, we have seen an increase in the suicides of teenagers in the digital era.  If a student was being bullied in school before the digital age, they could go home at 3:15 and generally not have to deal with it until the next day.  These days, you can literally never get away from it.  And it is with tragic consequences.

So, what can we do?  I enjoy interacting with others online, especially with things like sports.  That does not mean, however, I will not go to events in person.  I am very grateful for platforms like Zoom, because I can still gather with every single group and organization I am involved with until we can get back in person.  But as soon as we can, I will be there in person.  There is still nothing like in person contact.  I would hope that when we can all safely gather in person again that many will make a concentrated effort to socialize and be among people.  Social media is not going away, but we all have a choice about how much we allow into our lives and how much time we devote.  I believe that some people have to understand that social media and online really do not take the place of face-to-face relationship building.  I believe that parents and educators MUST teach our kids that at the end of the day, you need to be out playing with your friends instead of behind a screen sending messages back and forth to them.  I only have one social media platform and this blog.  Since I enjoy writing, I would be doing it anyway.  But that's it, and I generally do not go online at night unless something major is happening and I want to see live reaction.  

The final question is: where did we start losing respect for others, and how do we get that back again?  I am not sure that there are any easy questions to that.  But we all have to make a choice.  The easiest choice, and the easiest solution is that we must realize that unless someone has proven otherwise, everyone is worthy of our respect and fair treatment.  I do not believe we are under any obligation to be pleasant or accommodating to those who would abuse or mistreat us.  But someone having a different opinion does not warrant wishing horrible things upon them or speaking to them without respect.  Someone who does not know you is still deserving of your respect.  You think you can yell and be abusive to the clerk at your local convenience store because you don't know them?  No.  They are there to provide a service to you, and they deserve your respect as long as they are being respectful to you.  When we start to remember these things as a society, I do believe things will start to turn around.  Be a blessing to someone today, not a blowhard.