Anti-Social Media: the age of hate

“Social media is the collective of online communications channels dedicated to community-based input, interaction, content-sharing and collaboration”

Social: “living and breeding in more or less organized communities especially for the purposes of cooperation and mutual benefit”

The purpose of social media was help us get more connected, to share, collaborate, etc.; especially with people who lived far away. There is nothing social about the way we see it being used today:

·         Cyber bullying

·         Hate Speech

·         Shaming

These are just some of the daily things that happen on social media, and it seems like we are at the point where this kind of negativity is overtaking the positive aspect of what it was created for.

What is interesting is that people feel safe behind their computer screen, they say things to people virtually, that they would never say face to face. They feel powerful behind their anonymous keyboard personas, and unfortunately, even the most sane people can fall into this trap.

How many of you have commented on a post that was so outrageous you felt you had to say something? Did you change the poster’s mind? Did you truly feel better after commenting? Did you find yourself getting sucked into a back and forth cyber war?

The term “keyboard warrior” is recent, and it describes these cyber nuts who use the internet as their platform for hate. They have even infected our political discourse and debased it to the point where there is no discourse, just dysfunction. We cannot even have civil online conversations with other groups about the important things that affect us anymore!

I do not know what the solution is, but I know that ignoring an issue does not make it go away.

Remember the word social in social media, attempt to think of society at large when you post. This is not a kumbaya article, just a plea for sanity before we are all irreversibly gripped by madness.

Dr Flavius A B Akerele III

The ETeam