Create a dialogue between two characters discussing the impact of social media on their lives. Your dialogue should explore both the positive and negative effects of social media on society.


Answer: Glen: "Man, I've been feeling terrible lately. Just the worst anxiety. I've been spending too much time on social media."

Rashid: "I hear ya. It can really mess with your mood. I find it helps if I participate less and just, well, consume content. Curate it, too. I take some time to make sure I don't get all the political garbage or downer stuff."

Glen: "I can't do that. I get fired up too easily, man. I'm just reading, like, an article on cats and then someone in the comments goes off about how cat owners are stupid, and I reply, and then my night's ruined."

Rashid: "Don't ever read the comments!" <laughs>

Glen: "I know, man; I know! But I'm not talking about just that. I get on Twitter and I just see all this, I don't know, anger and trolling and negativity. And it gets to me. I start to think everything's worse than it is."

Rashid: "That's why you really need to use the tools the sites provide to aggressively curate what you see. Block people and brands. Get rid of annoying friends. Choose and refine categories for subjects you participate in. You have to tell the algorithm what you don't want. It's not perfect, but these days, I really only see family stuff, cats, and exotic car stuff on Facebook. Same for Pinterest and Instagram."

Glen: "Even then, it feels like the internet just wants to trick me all the time. Ads, appeals for money, grifts of all sorts, email scams. Like this is some seriously extractive capitalism nonsense, and that makes me tired, too. But I can't seem to stop engaging with it!"

Rashid: "Then limit your time to what you can  actually manage. Set timers, if you have to. Focus on the apps you have more control over, more ability to curate effectively. You gotta make the internet work for you now. Find communities but also be skeptical and suss them out before you dive into participating. And just be streetwise. If you think something's a scam, it probably is.  Walk away."

Glen: "I thought you'd tell me to go outside!"

Rashid: "Well, I was gonna get to that..."