Call me a realist, but I find myself continually questioning the merits of social media. On one hand, it has allowed us to connect in a way we would otherwise not… Friends from grade school, high school, college, past jobs, towns, hometowns, etc. It has allowed me to converse at least sometimes with friends I would otherwise miss. It has allowed me to get to know people in ways I wonder if I would otherwise know… how we think, what we’re up to, and what is important to each of us.
I value knowing what is important to you. I am thankful for the insights into one another’s lives — knowing, no less, that what’s most important to each of us is different.
Thank God.
What concerns me about social media isn’t the inundation of semi-spectacular selfies. You know the ones… Here I am with my best friend’s neighbor’s mother’s dog, and we are having the most fabulous time!… Yes, I, too, love the “fabulous times.”
What concerns me about social media is the judgment of our differences.
There are too many “this is how I feel, damn it’s.” You know those, too. They typically fall along the lines of, “I’ve been ticked off enough, mad enough, unheard long enough, that I’m finally going to tell the rest of the wold how I feel!” (… or at least tell my Facebook friend group — which has an increased probability of being reduced after the “this is how I feel” moment. Just sayin’.)
(Notice, also, who the subject of the above sentences is.)
A tangent but related FYI… Every time I think I’ve waited long enough, been silent long enough, or I just have a strong sense that I shouldn’t have to be this patient any more, I think of the ancient Israelites roaming in the desert. I think of their less than ideal conditions. Shockingly, they had no iPhones, iPads, earbuds or iTunes to speak of. They barely had a clean change of clothes. There was also no Walmart, healthcare, or any local grocery or restaurant in existence. And yet, they wandered. Fo 40 years.
If I had to go even 4 days without my iPhone or iPad, I guarantee my grumbling would be near evident to all.
Back to my concern, of course… we are a judgmental people.
Every rant… every refusal to wait… every insistence that another hear me…
Why?
Who is the subject of my sentence?
Is it not me?
Have we somehow evolved to a point where we believe that the best way to win friends and influence people is to shout at them and not put up with their differing opinion any more? Have we somehow justified that loving others well means spewing our own opinion louder instead of listening and asking why another feels the way they do?
What if the next time you met a Donald Trump supporter (because yes, they probably live next door to you), you asked them why they feel that way — as opposed to simply mentally categorizing them as somehow advocating bigotry?
What if the next time you met a Bernie Sanders supporter, you invited them into a healthy dialogue — as opposed to immediately dismissing them as economically ignorant?
What if?
What if we approached social media differently?
… as opposed to, yes, falling prey to being so judgmental?
Such judgment rarely wins friends or influences people… at least in a good way.
Respectfully…
AR
Couldn’t agree more