We all lament how toxic social media can be but rarely do we get an opportunity to do something about it.
Yesterday I ran into an issue with some tools I was using at work. This was really annoying and I wanted to let everyone else know just how annoyed I was. I opened up Twitter and started typing. I had my snarky tweet all crafted designed to do nothing but tell the world just how annoyed I was. Right before I hit send I stopped, deleted the tweet, and closed the app.
In the moment between finishing typing out the tweet and sending it I realized that I wasn't doing anything useful, I was just looking to complain. Don't get me wrong, letting out frustration is important. It can help us through difficult times but I was about to let out some really minor frustration using the loudest megaphone I had. This would be akin to yelling at everyone I knew, even just in passing, that I was upset about something. This wasn't actually what I wanted.
This phenomenon happens all day every day on social media. It is a huge contributor to why social media is so toxic. You are bombarded with people's annoyances and frustrations because they wanted to blow off some steam. Something annoys them on their commute home, post about it. Something annoys them in the grocery store, post about it. Something annoys them at the coffee shop, post about it. You get the picture. All of this seemingly harmless complaining meaningfully contributes to the negative experiences of everyone around you. On social media that's a heck of a lot of people.
A lot of issues like the toxicity in our social spaces seems like a problem that is too big to tackle as one person. In many ways it is. That doesn't mean there isn't something you can do about it. Next time you're going to post about that thing that annoyed you during your day make the world a little bit better place and maybe just don't.
Yesterday I ran into an issue with some tools I was using at work. This was really annoying and I wanted to let everyone else know just how annoyed I was. I opened up Twitter and started typing. I had my snarky tweet all crafted designed to do nothing but tell the world just how annoyed I was. Right before I hit send I stopped, deleted the tweet, and closed the app.
In the moment between finishing typing out the tweet and sending it I realized that I wasn't doing anything useful, I was just looking to complain. Don't get me wrong, letting out frustration is important. It can help us through difficult times but I was about to let out some really minor frustration using the loudest megaphone I had. This would be akin to yelling at everyone I knew, even just in passing, that I was upset about something. This wasn't actually what I wanted.
This phenomenon happens all day every day on social media. It is a huge contributor to why social media is so toxic. You are bombarded with people's annoyances and frustrations because they wanted to blow off some steam. Something annoys them on their commute home, post about it. Something annoys them in the grocery store, post about it. Something annoys them at the coffee shop, post about it. You get the picture. All of this seemingly harmless complaining meaningfully contributes to the negative experiences of everyone around you. On social media that's a heck of a lot of people.
A lot of issues like the toxicity in our social spaces seems like a problem that is too big to tackle as one person. In many ways it is. That doesn't mean there isn't something you can do about it. Next time you're going to post about that thing that annoyed you during your day make the world a little bit better place and maybe just don't.