Life Lessons: Social Media is Hardly Social and Barely Media

Social Media is destroying my faith in humanity. Regardless of the sites you use the most, Social Media has opened the door to rudeness, condescension, hostility and relentless barrage of offensiveness. The comments and posts you see contain thoughts and words the person posting would normally not say to your face.

In the past, we were taught to agree to disagree and that politics and religion were not polite subjects to discuss in a social setting. Well, in the Age of Social Media, it’s agree to be offended by people who disagree. Politics and religion have become the litmus test by which we gauge another person’s intelligence (those who disagree can’t be as smart as you are!).

Let’s also talk about the media component. The profession of journalism is dead. As a trained journalist (B.S. in Broadcast Journalism, Ohio University, 1990), I was taught that spelling counted, grammar mattered, facts had to be confirmed. None of this seems to be true anymore. And, we are in a presidential election season that will be dominated by fake news sites and people who view them as truth.

Yes, there are benefits of social media, but those benefits are too often being eclipsed by the down, dirty and negative side of social media.