Humanity’s Biggest Danger: Social Media
I have officially joined Twitter. I know, I know. What took me so long right? I used to spend the majority of my social media time on Facebook, with the occasional Instagram post thrown in. I joined Twitter as I am a political analyst, and I was told that Twitter was the best social network to receive news updates and share analyses and opinions. “You have to be on Twitter. You gotta have that presence!” — my colleagues crowed on. Having spent the past few weeks getting to know the ins and outs of it, as well as Facebook, never in my wildest nightmares have I seen so much hate, vitriol, toxicity and downright stupidity. These social networks have enabled a worldwide culture, no — a worldwide pandemic of hyper-partisanship, hypersensitivity, and a seeming complete inability to engage in any resonable debate amongst each other. Not only is this detrimental to our democratic values, but it is detrimental to the fabric of the human consciousness.
Allow me to offer an example that happened to me this very morning. I tried to engage in a very reasonable debate about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (I know it’s a sensitive topic). I want to make it absolutely clear: I am an analyst, not a campaigner. The questions I ask and comments I give are totally neutral, non partisan and logical. The person on the receiving end of my questions is a very esteemed professor, whose name I won’t mention. She answered my question in a very childish manner, throwing a whole list of accusations at me although we have not corresponded beyond one single comment, and subsequently proceeded to block me before I had a chance to answer.
Here lies the huge problem that these networks have created. I will not comment on how childish of an act this was coming from a person with many years in academia, but what I will say is that these networks have allowed their users to create echo chambers where they can hear only what they want to hear. If something doesn’t appeal to you, simply block it. It’s the societal equivalent of a 5 year old putting his hands on his ears and singing “Na na na” to block out unwanted noise. If I am a left wing Anarchist, I can make it so I live in a virtual world where I only hear about this. Same goes for an ultra right wing Neo Nazi.
I can’t state enough how dangerous this is. Humanity has never solved its problems throughout history with this kind of idiotic behaviour. What happened to being able to come from a perspective of mutual respect and engage in reasonable debate about our grievances? Look at the problems we are facing today. Wars, COVID19, riots, race inequality… you name it, it’s here. How did we get to the point where a college professor is afraid of a debate? Or an elected official yelling profanities and spreading conspiracy theories? How did we get to the point where the “responsible adults” feel like they need to act like children in order to get the most clicks? This needs to stop. Now.
So in that light, I will take my analyses here, to Medium, where I hope I will finally be able to engage with people who genuinely care about our world’s problems and how we can come together to solve them. I still believe there are many people out there who want to use our newfound human connections for the greater good. But I will still be keeping my Twitter profile. Gotta keep that presence right?
