The context of this is the death of an MP. Stabbed to death at a surgery in his Essex constituency, the whole shocking and very sad event has highlighted our social media habits, all the hate and bole that public figures such as MP's get.
So can we blame social media for the sins of society? Do we blame the car for killing the pedestrian? No! Did I cause the death of someone because I sold them cigarettes and alcohol too? No! Or does social media just mirror the society in which we live? "Society is that way, so social media is too", and wasn't the death of yet another alcoholic inevitable?
If someone is of the mindset to kill, for whatever reason that is they are going to kill, be it politicians now, today, in the 21st century, or back 40, 50, 60 years ago. "Blame the immigrants" goes the cry of today. "No Jews, No Irish, No Blacks" go the cries of 40, 50, 60 years ago. What's changed?
Have we got social media all wrong? We can't blame the young entrepreneurs of the early internet age, or indeed the internet itself. From their parents converted garages and back-bedrooms, did they start out thinking they would make something on which people could insult, accuse or even threaten violence on others? No! I'm sure the thinking was they were making a place to communicate, share, join in on. They wouldn't have foreseen what the internet and these platforms would become and indeed, couldn't have known that the mobile phone would become what it is to us today. How could they?
Surely it's the "society" in social media that is alas; missing. Society has joined in and is using social media how it uses life in general. The snag being, with social media, society can hide behind a "nom de plume", the screen comes between them and their words.
So, can we blame social media for society's ills? I think not but do we need to look in the mirror? Let's turn it round. Is what we do on social media becoming what we do in real life?
If someone in our society, our street, our neighbourhood, maybe be even someone we knew, an acquaintance, plans on killing someone we'd want to know about it. If we were fully involved in our society, properly involved, walking our children to school, talking to our neighbours, actually visiting our local shops, we would know more, wouldn't we? The irony might be that we have lost our sense of society in amongst all this social media? We now think social media is society!
Do we stare at our screens so much that real life, the things that are going on in the real world don't count, somehow don't matter as much as what is going on on our screens? Should we not therefore lift our faces from our screens and devices a little more, and open the front door to check the street in which we live!
Tolerance. What has happened to tolerance? Can we blame social media for the loss of that? One negative thing social media has given us is this false belief that we can say what we like! We can, can't we? I think we think so and that belief has come off our screens and we have taken it out into the outside world, the few times we seem to go out that is.
Social media seems to have liberated those on the edge of society. It's given them a broadcast channel to spread their views and slate those whose views dont match or at least compliment their own. We have become less tolerant.
Is that the fault of social media too?
Here am I slating social media on a blog post, on social media!
"Who is he to say we must get our heads out of our screens more? "
I take that criticism onboard. I wrote this piece on my mobile, on Blogger, a social media platform and no doubt will be sharing it on a few of the most popular social media sites. But I do plan on using social media less!
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