Your Social Media Post Isn’t Going to Change the World, but Being Nice to Your Mailman Might.
If you’re trying to change the world, start small.
Like many of you, in the wake of the events that have taken place in our country this week, I allowed myself to be drowned beneath the waves of social media activism. I found my thoughts about what was being said for all sides of the political battleground to be all encompassing. I was glued to my phone, scrolling and scrolling and scrolling, watching people fight hate with more hate, hotter hate, and rage. Everyone using their platforms to spread advocacy but also, on the turn of a dime, aggression and malice. But quickly I realized that, while it may appear to be empowering to spring to action on social media to share your perspective, there is no progress to be made on these platforms. In fact, after a decent amount of contemplation the last few days, I realized that we have all been tricked into playing this divisive and dangerous game.
In the midst of this tumultuous political climate that is overcoming our society, I’ve come to realize that one of the biggest problems plaguing our country (if not our world) right now, is social media. Now, this might be an argument that seems plain and rather obvious to you, but after further thought, it has been eye-opening to me. I can’t believe that I’ve been so blind to it. Every single piece of media that we consume, has altered our perception of the world around us. We cannot distinguish the real world from the world we see on our phones.
And you might be saying to yourself, “Well, Carly, the world we see on social media is real!” Yes, it is! There is no denying that there are morbid, horrible, heart-breaking things happening every single day in every corner of our country and the world. Those things are true, they are happening, and that world is out there, but we are seeing them through a lens, and we have been looking at it through a lens for so long that we don’t even notice that it’s there anymore. Every news outlet, every social media platform, every person, is putting a spin and a lens on the information we consume. We are seeing more opinions than we are seeing facts. We aren’t able to move through the world with just information, there is no place to receive information as just facts. I can sort of feel an incoming lecture here about “fake news” and I want to put a stop to that before it even begins. I spent three years of my life and many, many thousands of dollars to get a degree in journalism. I’m well aware that there is no good news source in the world these days -- at least not one that I have been able to find, with a detailed background in understanding what makes a good news source. Even if you were to track down the most non-partisian, non-biased news outlet in the world, there would be a comment section at the bottom swarmed with anonymous commenters reigning war on each other.
I would argue that the other plague to our society is hatred, but this is, sadly, a tale as old as time. Ever since the start of our country, hatred has reigned down on us. It has been ever present, if not in the foreground of the photo of our society, then it was there lingering in the background. If it wasn’t hatred for African Americans, it was hatred for the gay community, or it was hatred for women, or so on and so forth. Hatred has always been there, and at this point, I’m not sure that we will ever get on the same page about fighting hate with love instead of more hate. It doesn’t really seem to be an aligning argument to love one another, I think people would rather fight. But social media has amplified these hatreds tenfold. Using these platforms, you can team up -- find people that hate the same way as you -- and spread that hate like a wildfire.
It’s so easy to hop online and share an Instagram story, and then to attack one another with words one wouldn’t dare say to one's face through the guise of a chatbox. More so than that, It’s easy to paint the world as black and white when you’re scrolling through these social media feeds, seeing one side be pinned as an adversary against another. We are all victims to it.
Every single person that’s reading this right now. Let’s fight against one another! Let’s bring each other down, let’s carry out judgment on one's character through a screen.
Pick a side! Pick a side! Oh, you’re silent, you’ve chosen your side!! We don’t like your side!!
Taking a step back from social media right now has shown me that this is what they want from us. We are responsible for the destruction and the division of this country because instead of looking at the world and the people that are in front of us, that are surrounding us in our community, we are looking at it through the lens of social media. We are sucked into it. It’s all consuming. Everyone around you, on their phones, deeply enthralled in the neverending conversations, live streams, discussions, arguments, and hate that circulates.
Nothing that’s going on in this country is a bipartisan issue. There are not two sides. There is not your side versus my side. It is not black and white.
That is division. Division does not lead to resolution.
The only way to achieve resolution is to look at one another and realize that at the end of the day, if we laid all of our cards out on the table, I think we would all find more overlap than we think. We have forgotten that most of us live in a grey zone. I have spent a great deal of my short life thinking that this was a right versus a left issue. I’ve argued politics up the wall with my loved ones. I have forgotten about the grey zone, because I’ve spent so much time on social media seeing people go to war with one another for one side or the other, that I ceased to remember we are existing beside one another.
I’ve always been an empath, and for me that makes these conversations extremely hard and extremely emotional, because I cannot stand to see hatred and violence and political persecution spreading across the world. I hate gun violence, let me make that abundantly clear. But never will I ever believe that one person's life is more important than the next.
However, I’ve taken a long hard look at this world that we live in and I’ve realized that there is no change to be made in the fight between the left and the right anymore. Democrats hating Republicans and Republicans hating Democrats and everyone trying to kill one another is not going to bring us any closer to peace and prosperity in society. The longer we spend trying to tear down one another and trying to force one another to bend the knee to our different belief systems, the longer we delay the solution to our problems.
Now obviously, despite what I’m sure a few of you reading this might believe, I’m not ignorant to the fact that there are going to be extremists on either side of these conversations. There are going to be people that are unwavering, rigid in their ideas, unwilling to see any conversation that does not align with their morality, however, in the grand scheme of things, these individuals are not so present as they may seem. Ultimately, they are the ones that tend to be louder, as they always have been.
So earlier I mentioned “our solution,” and you might be wondering ‘What’s the solution?’ But just because you cannot change the sentiment of the masses it doesn’t mean you cannot change your impact on the few. While I’m no longer going to try and cry out for an olive branch from the world, I will offer them up to those around me, in the hopes that one day we can work together to find a larger solution.
Instead, I’ve decided that the only way to have any sort of positive impact on the world is to love one another. And not only the people that believe what I believe, or who registered to vote the same way that I did. I mean everybody. Because the only thing in the world that can shut out hate, is love. The way you treat your neighbor, the clerk at your grocery store, your garbage man…that is how you have a positive impact on the world. Those are the only beacons of hope that we have. That is how you perpetuate change -- how you take action in your real life -- not your digital one.
As I’ve argued here, I don’t think anybody is going to change the world with an online post. I don’t plan to change the world with this article either, but I can hope that I’m using my small little literary blog to inspire one another to put down these digital swords and spend some time truly creating a positive impact in your home, your work place, your community. Love the people you see every day. Love the people around you. Forget about the screennames and the anonymous posters, we were never supposed to know them. We were never supposed to hear what every single person in the world has to say 24/7. Social media has changed our perception of humankind, and the only way to regain it, is to return to the real world, to real people.
Take a break from social media, I know I will. Don’t allow yourself to get sucked into that constant whirlpool of hatred, you’ll never save anybody from drowning in the comment section of an Instagram post.