On feeling a way through the day, one line at a time, when everything is hard and also on fire. Plus two poems by Naomi Shihab Nye and Aracelis Girmay.
May 8, 2022·edited May 8, 2022Liked by Kristin Lueke
"...we owe each other nothing and there are no consequences for cruelty."
We owe each other nothing. I just realized when I read this line -- that's the problem with social media, isn't it? We somehow feel permission to break the social contract. We are free to yell obsenities at people we'd normally smile and nod to in the grocery line. Then we put it out of our mind -- probabaly feel a little lighter for getting it off our chest -- and go about our day without any regard for how those words may have landed. And, as you point out, without consequences.
It's kind of like that experiment they did with the people asking another person questions and giving them an increasingly larger electric shock every time they give a wrong answer. Most people bail -- eventually. But that's only because they can hear the screams. And they don't bail as quickly as one would hope. Probably not as quickly as they would hope. I wonder what would happen if they couldn't hear the screams?
No consequences. No eye contact. What's "social" about that?
Great post. Hope you can find your way out of the Twitter forest.
yes, YES! exactly graham. a social ecosystem that rewards anti-social behavior feels so regressive and increasingly isolating, not to mention unsustainable. while watching it crumble in real time may be, hm, instructive in some ways, it certainly doesn't feel nourishing. i don't know where to draw the line, but i'm grateful to be able to think out loud about it with you. ❤️🙏🏽
I have no idea where the line is -- I'm a casual Twitter user at best! But I know of many people who have tapped out. And I've read several Twitter conversations myself where I just had to leave because I was getting too mad at the situation.
I heard someone say years ago that engaging with argumenatative people on social media is like boxing with ghosts. He was talking mostly about famous and semi-famous people dealing with haters, but it holds true in varying degrees for everyone, I would think.
Social media makes everyone a ghost in a way. That's fine if you still interact as if they are live and in front of you. But if you abuse that inherent disconnectedness and break the social contract, that's when toxicity leaches into the conversation. IMHO.
♥️
i will build you a home in my songs forever ❤️
"...we owe each other nothing and there are no consequences for cruelty."
We owe each other nothing. I just realized when I read this line -- that's the problem with social media, isn't it? We somehow feel permission to break the social contract. We are free to yell obsenities at people we'd normally smile and nod to in the grocery line. Then we put it out of our mind -- probabaly feel a little lighter for getting it off our chest -- and go about our day without any regard for how those words may have landed. And, as you point out, without consequences.
It's kind of like that experiment they did with the people asking another person questions and giving them an increasingly larger electric shock every time they give a wrong answer. Most people bail -- eventually. But that's only because they can hear the screams. And they don't bail as quickly as one would hope. Probably not as quickly as they would hope. I wonder what would happen if they couldn't hear the screams?
No consequences. No eye contact. What's "social" about that?
Great post. Hope you can find your way out of the Twitter forest.
~Graham
yes, YES! exactly graham. a social ecosystem that rewards anti-social behavior feels so regressive and increasingly isolating, not to mention unsustainable. while watching it crumble in real time may be, hm, instructive in some ways, it certainly doesn't feel nourishing. i don't know where to draw the line, but i'm grateful to be able to think out loud about it with you. ❤️🙏🏽
I have no idea where the line is -- I'm a casual Twitter user at best! But I know of many people who have tapped out. And I've read several Twitter conversations myself where I just had to leave because I was getting too mad at the situation.
I heard someone say years ago that engaging with argumenatative people on social media is like boxing with ghosts. He was talking mostly about famous and semi-famous people dealing with haters, but it holds true in varying degrees for everyone, I would think.
Social media makes everyone a ghost in a way. That's fine if you still interact as if they are live and in front of you. But if you abuse that inherent disconnectedness and break the social contract, that's when toxicity leaches into the conversation. IMHO.
~Graham