A choice that can be made...

The more I think about it, the more I have to conclude that social media has a lot to answer for, particularly when it comes to it’s overuse and misuse by ‘activists’ or indeed, anyone with an axe to grind. It’s leading to a worrying degree of polarisation and people retreating into their own protective bubbles rather than interacting and debating with people they don’t agree with.

This retreat into a protective bubble is leading to people simply not being able to put together a rational, persuasive argument defending their position. Instead of debate, we have vindictive insults and sometimes threats. It’s not a left versus right thing as some people would have it. This crosses and goes beyond the political spectrum. It’s not a problem of where someone is on the spectrum.

It’s a problem of what social media is actually doing to people’s thought processes.

I’ve been an activist in one guise or another since the late 1970s. Up until the 2ooos, a fair number of disagreements within activist circles were often sorted out by an honest face to face discussion. Sure, there were some groups who were beyond reason but, there were ways of dealing with them:) It now seems to be the case that any kind of divergence from a rigid pattern of thinking cannot be tolerated by an increasing number of people and is responded to with vitriol.

The issue with social media getting in the way of a reasoned debate is something I dealt with in this piece: Too much tech? 13.4.25.

In an ideal world, technology was supposed to make our lives easier, taking care of the drudge while we got on with the important things in life. Just one of the things it was supposed to do was help us communicate more effectively with each other. Instead it has replaced meaningful face to face interactions with screen based ones. We all know how screen based communications can easily be misinterpreted and end up in toxic rows that divide us!

It’s all too easy to say we should switch off our social media apps and go back to more meaningful ways of communicating with each other. It’s actually not at all easy! In the previous post I wrote, I’ve admitted that I’ve become over reliant on social media tech and need to wind it back: Onwards and upwards? 17.4.25.

The next stage of the process is to greatly reduce my consumption of social media, in particular, the rage porn and divide and rule bullshit that’s too much of a feature on the X (formerly known as Twitter) platform. Weaning myself off social media has proved harder than I was expecting. Still, it has to be done, if only for the sake of my mental health!

What has to be born in mind is that many of the social media platforms we use are owned by corporations who not only do not have our interests at heart but also, have every interest in dividing and getting us at each other’s throats. The problem is that too many people have ended up relying on what to all intents and purposes, is the enemy’s infrastructure.

Isn’t it time that more of us gave some consideration as to what social media is doing to us, and then resolve to move ourselves away from it as far as is possible? I hope this poem will inspire – kickstart if need be – more people to start thinking along those lines...

Despair or hope?

Despair or hope...who chooses?
Is a life of fear all there is?
Do we endlessly doomscroll while falling into a rabbit hole of fear?
Or do we say enough?

The ever present screen in our pockets makes us slaves
Slaves to fear, slaves to division, slaves to hate, slaves to despair
They silently pull the strings, making us their puppets
Dancing to their sick agenda of division...

We're not slaves, we can choose
Their screens don't own us
The puppet masters don't own us
We own ourselves...

There's a world out there away from their strings
A world away from their screens
A world we can make our own
All we need is to say is enough, no more!