First, some clarity:
Worldview A particular philosophy of life or conception of the world.
Social Media A slang term for the current state of the internet.
The answer to this question is actually pretty simple; it is exactly the same as it would be without, but more extreme in either direction.
I believe that the same amount of good and bad exists in the world today as it did twenty years ago (though in different forms). What has changed is our awareness of them. Social media has turned every person into a media company, giving us insight into everyone’s lives and unparalleled coverage of newsworthy events, positive or negative.
I think that for every person out there who is perpetuating hate or negativity on the internet there is a person who is trying to counteract it with positivity and support. Unfortunately, those people usually aren’t as loud or get as much attention.
There are a couple of terms floating around the internet like “headline porn” or “rage porn,” which usually refer to when the masses get a kick out of slanderous stories with misleading headlines based on out-of-context information. This kind of stuff bugs me about social media because negative posts can go viral much more easily as positive ones.
Isaac Newton’s third law of motion states…
For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
And I think of this same philosophy loosely in terms of good and bad in the world. For every loud-mouth jerk who is trying to make this world a darker place, there is a Tony Robbins, a Gary Vaynerchuk, a Casey Neistat, or a Prince Ea trying to make the world brighter by supporting, motivating, or inspiring others. Yes, social media exposes a lot of negative things going on in the world, but it also sheds light on the positive ones.
I really hate that trolls exist, and they hurt other people with their words. Social media has given a voice to a group of people who should not have one. Bad people who have no regard for the feelings of the people on the other end of their anonymous comments.
In that video, Casey Neistat puts it pretty astutely when he says…
Hurt people hurt people.
Your experience on social media is what you make it. Cut out the negativity and only surround yourself with people who are good and want the best for others. The beauty of social media is that it is so easy to unfollow or block anyone who is only dragging the world down with their hate instead building it up with their love.
Apply this same practice to your life and you’ll live a pretty happy one.
Blogust is my attempt to challenge myself to write every day for an entire month. The end goals include practice writing, more material on my blog, establishing a daily writing habit, and accomplishing a personal challenge. I have not given these posts any forethought, all prompts were conceived by other people.
