Opinion

L&T Publisher Earl Watt

There’s no doubt that I’ve made a post or two on social media I should have edited.

We’ve all said or done something that we’ve regretted, but social media makes it so much easier.

I have debates online with those who see the world differently than I see it, and I don’t have a problem conversing with the other minded.

But it can become fatiguing to constantly rehash the same old issues over and over again, and that can sometimes lead to a comment that isn’t as kind as it should be.

I realize that a conversation online is not exactly meant for the person on the other end. As the memes indicate, people love a good back and forth, people who will never pipe in their opinion, and they will set back, eat popcorn and watch the fireworks. It’s like watching NASCAR for the wrecks.

And I have obliged them more than I should with a snarky retort.

It’s just a different format that does not reward good behavior. The nicer you are, the easier the target.

A recent addition of an Olive Garden coming to Lawrence taught me a lesson on just how toxic social media can be. Hundreds of remarks were made about an announcement that many of us would welcome here, but for those who chose to opine, this was the worst decision in history. The location was wrong, the business was wrong, it would be doomed to failure, and on and on.

The extreme rare comment by a brave soul looking forward to the addition put themselves up for public ridicule.

People we’ve never met somehow judge our education, our life experiences, our intelligence and our moral compass.

Toxic to the core.

It’s no wonder we’ve seen teen suicide and online bullying on the rise. This format thrives on the negative and the meanness in each of us, and if you thought you weren’t before, just spend some time on social media, and you will see just how easy it is to say that thing you never thought you would.

It’s the old “Fight fire with fire” mentality, and I don’t blame anyone for sticking up for themselves.

Here locally we witnessed the abuse taken for adding a Ruby Slipper slide. Some compared that to another community adding a business. Apples and oranges, but that’s what social media can do.

We allow comments on our social media, and we take some abuse. We do have standards and draw the line at racist remarks and vulgarity.

The phrase most often associated with these people is “keyboard warrior.” They talk a big game online but typically offer little beyond that.

A recent conversation, face-to-face, with some other members of the community led to key moments of coming of age, when we socialized by meeting at someone’s house or on a parking lot on Main Street. We talked with each other, we went to dances and other community events. Socializing was just that — coming together.

Our formative years involved the requirement of seeing each other in person, and even if we were talking on the phone — that thing on the wall with a coiled cord that was shared by every single person in the house — we were at least hearing the voice of the person on the other end.

But that formative experience is being lost today. Socializing involves an electronic device, something that filters our inflection and emotion and replaces it with memes and a mean spirit.

There’s nothing wrong with social media for those who already developed the skills of communication through socialization.

But for the developing mind, this format degrades a very necessary skill in human development.

It can be seen when asking younger people to talk to someone on the phone. It is almost debilitating to think they should converse with a complete stranger by phone.

“Can’t I just text them? Or send an email?”

Communication is much more effective when it is done in person. When people can see each other face to face, listen to the conversation, and then reach a conclusion on their own, true socialization has taken place.

But now it seems critical thinking is a group activity, that independent thought is replaced with the number of likes a post may receive.

Or, we only allow ourselves to hear one side of a conversation or viewpoint which leads to two outcomes, both of them bad. We believe what we are hearing is the only sane position, and we believe those who disagree are somehow unworthy of even being heard.

This has played out with the eradication of the middle ground. Sure, we still compromise on where the family will eat, maybe. But for the most part, we expect you to either agree with our position or we will find new friends who do.

This is affecting the dating scene. It’s definitely affected politics.

And the polarization is easily seen in the type of information shared. One side will parrot the talking points of their party while the other side does the exact same thing. And we will point to the other side as being the problem for not listening to our side. And by listening we mean abandoning their core values and adopting mine.

Anyone outside of our sphere, then, must be part of a cult. That’s the only explanation for them not agreeing with our well-intentioned and thought-out ideology.

And so it becomes “socially” acceptable to use terms like cult, racist, mysogynist, socialist, nazi and so many others because these other views do not fit in my view of the world.

It may come as a surprise that disagreeing isn’t new. But we used to respect those who saw the world differently believing they had just as much a right to their point of view as we had to ours.

The danger is that neither side believes that any more. We believe the opposition to be dead set at ending the world as we know it. And ‘social’ media just might end society altogether.