We the People of Social Media
By: Amy Jo Ferriss
Tags: Social Media, News, Heart, Diversity, Social Change

Today in our world we are inundated by new technology, online news, and the favorite of many, social media. Facebook, Twitter, Parler, MeWe, Minds, Instagram, Discord, YouTube, Rumble, MySpace. The list is endless. Countless articles have been written as to how it affects us both positively and negatively. Social media has become controversial and many groups are moving from one site to another or an array of others depending on their beliefs. Lawsuits are being filed against certain social media sites and some have gone before Congress and Parliament due to their practices.

To say that we are a world of newspapers and radios, like our parents and grandparents of yesterday, is laughable at best. This world of social media, opinion and biased news, and differences in people and beliefs are creating an imbalance. We can see that imbalance in the way we view and treat others. We align ourselves with only those we agree with. We cancel one another out observing that we have a “cancel culture” now. We are taking to the streets, hurting and killing people with different belief systems. The days of live-and-let-live are gone. The simplicity of living is no longer simple; fusing in all other political, religious, business, and COVID issues with social media.

How can we stand as a world, a country, a people, a group, a family, being divided as we are? What we believe and who we are determines “where and who we belong with” in this new social media controlled world. Social media and this new society have said so; therefore, it must be.

Having lunch in a local Chinese restaurant, I listened to a most interesting conversation of two unique couples. Both couples were seventy years plus in age. One couple was African-American and Caucasian , Christian, and Democrat. The other was an Asian and Hispanic, Buddhist, and Republican. I know it is rude to eavesdrop, but I couldn’t help myself. I’m nosy and they were from very different backgrounds having lunch together. What were the odds in this society and social media world? They were talking about social media and discussing the reasons why they had a distaste for it. Bantering back and forth, I heard words and scenarios containing words like ignorance, rudeness, rifts, hate, heartlessness, control, and cruelty. Over and over the same ideation repeatedly occurred in my mind. Here I have a two very diverse couples eating lunch and yet they seem to be cohesive. How is that possible?

Later I learned that the couples were in a support group for parents whose adult children have died. Once my meal and eavesdropping was finished, I scraped what was left of my heart and mind from the floor, paid my check, and went home. What has happened to our world that we have become so callous that we allow social media to dictate who and what we are? We allow it, and it only, to mold us and feed us what we should be and believe. How is it we have allowed social media to box us in to one group or another? We are a society that has become indeterminately blind to the world outside cell phones and computer screens. We forget we are real people with hopes, dreams, fears, hurts, backgrounds and more. We have forgotten that it takes many different people to make up this world whether we are a part of them or not or agree or disagree.

My article may not be original in its content; however, a profound fact must be stated aloud, we have to put social media into perspective and its proper place and learn people again. Put it down for a change and let go of the addiction we have with it. Learn what it means to tolerate, understand, forgive, and agree to disagree with others in the outside world of social media without attack, boxing them, and being cruel. Actually spend time with those we love without it. It is the only way we will bring back polite society. Is it an impossible feat? Maybe, but it begins with you and me.