Transcriber: Quynh Anh Reviewer: Keira White
Thank you, it is an honor and privilege to be here today
to talk with you about something
that 50 percent of people wordwide engage in,
and 72 percent of all Americans engage in.
And that is Social media.
Now, I almost feel like I should recuse myself
because it took me a while to get on board with social media.
I tend to be a little technologically phobic, trend resistant.
But it wasn’t long before I started to notice that in order to have access
to other websites, I had to have a social media account.
But more importantly, I got the sense that I was missing out on something.
People would ask me at parties:
“Did you see So-and-so’s new baby?” “Did you see their Christmas event?”
And I would honestly have to say no
because I don’t have a social media account.
So reluctantly I got on board.
And that’s the purpose of this discussion today,
it’s to talk with you a little bit about my relationship and journey
with social media and how we might begin to maximize the connections
and re-connections that are possible on social media.
Said another way,
how do we get the benefits while mitigating some of the costs?
So not unlike a lot of you,
I quickly began to see that there was maybe a bit of a shadow side
or a dark side to social media.
I started seeing many evocative posts.
These posts were really definitive
or there wasn’t a lot of room for discussion.
They tended to be very opinionated as opposed to fact-laden.
And most importantly, what I saw was an oversimplification of really complex
and multifaceted social and political issues.
And I was a bit confused, to tell you the truth.
How am I supposed to handle this?
These are people I’m in a relationship with,
we generally have good rapport.
Is the right thing to do to respond in kind?
Or is the right thing to do to just scroll past?
And do the costs outweigh the benefits?
Well, these were some of the mental gymnastics
that I went through,
and let me be the first to say that we’re all free to speak our minds.
But I’m wondering if we could focus maybe a bit more on, not what we’re saying,
but how we're saying it, because the tone at times feels almost bullying.
And the truth is we're more similar than we are different.
All of us cares for our country.
Most of us, I’ve got to qualify that, we care for our families,
and we want to succeed in life.
So we have a lot more in common than we have differences.
And unfortunately, I saw this type of speech
carrying over to social situations,
dinners, family events.
Sometimes someone couldn’t resist the temptation
to make a comment which left others in that situation
feeling quite invalidated.
I’ve also noticed on social media, we’re doing a lot of labeling these days.
I don’t know if you’ve caught this, but it seems like everybody’s an empath,
someone who’s very sensitive and intuitive,
picks up on each other's energy.
Of course, we filter energy through our own experiences
or the people that you don’t like tend to be labeled narcissistic.
It seems like we all went to the University of YouTube,
and of course, those complex diagnoses,
there’s a reason that folks have to go to school
for years and years to make those.
My issue or what I challenge you to think about is,
is this helpful or hurtful to our communication?
So if I fancy myself an empath or able to understand people
better than others, then it’s divisive.
If I decide that I don’t like what you have to say
therefore that makes you a narcissist, then I can discount what you have to say.
And what if the truth is this? What if there’s an empath in all of us?
And what if there’s a little bit of narcissist in all of us?
So maybe we could start relating to each other,
walking shoulder to shoulder, as opposed to dichotomies and labels.
I’m also concerned about some of the genuineness
and our ability to relate to each other.
You take a look at that young lady in a swimsuit.
I could post that on my social media page
and say, that’s me, and most of you would smile politely and say:
“I’m pretty sure you’re the grandma in the bottom picture”,
and you would be correct.
And yet if you didn’t know me outside of social media,
would you know any better?
Well, let’s go with a less extreme example.
What about the happy family pictured here?
I see lots of happy family events and photos going on social media,
and in my heart and my soul, I hope that these are very genuine.
But what if your family is more like the one in the middle?
It isn't that I'm suggesting that people put out their stuff on social media,
but what I am suggesting is
that we need to connect with what’s genuine and what’s real.
How do we obtain some kind of intimacy if we don’t know each other?
And intimacy, of course, is knowing the good news and the bad news
about each other and liking each other anyway.
And what about the picture at the end?
Spirituality is very much back.
But what if you’re the lady in the bottom
who, I don’t know, yelled at the clerk because she asked you for a receipt
on the way out of the store?
It seems a little inconsistent,
and it’s not to suggest that there’s not good news and bad news in all of us.
It’s just to remember that we are all a mixture,
that we’re all works in progress.
And life is what’s going on when you’re on social media.
Life was meant to be experienced through all of the senses.
It wasn’t intended to be experienced through a lens.
And as I take a look at these pictures, I want to look at the moms and say:
“You’re missing it and you’re not going to get that time back”.
So what if we could strive for getting likes from our family
and less likes from strangers?
Not all hope is lost, and I don’t think social media is a horrible thing.
I think that we're new to it.
So we’re at this point, just trying to figure out how to maneuver this thing.
And I do have some suggestions.
Look for the similarities between you and other people.
There's profoundly more similarities than there are differences.
I would love to see us all improve our impulse control a little bit.
So if you get the urge to put out that snarky post,
could you wait twenty-four hours, right?
Because a lot of these posts go out there
when we’re in the middle of something emotional.
Let’s wait twenty four hours.
Acknowledge our choices.
So if we’re putting out very antagonistic things,
antagonism begets antagonism, peace begets peace.
So we want to acknowledge what we’re putting out there,
we’re likely to get back in kind.
I would also like to suggest that you answer the phone one time per day.
I think some of this intimacy could be achieved if we were using all modalities
of communication and not just social media.
Pick up that phone, maybe answer a call on someone else’s schedule.
It might help with connectedness.
And call when appropriate.
I think texts and I.M. are really beneficial
for things like: Meet me for lunch at 12:30.
I don’t think they were ever intended for evocative or emotional messages.
Because I don’t know if you caught this,
when you text somebody when you’re in an argument
it ends up looking like those posts, and I don’t think
that that’s a natural way for a conversation to happen.
So I’m wondering if we could value our relationships,
and handle those things face to face or over the phone.
I would love to see us educate ourselves,
I was blessed enough to be part of the debate team
when I was growing up
and we did point and counter-point.
But if you had to resort to getting personal or being disparaging,
you were thought to not be a very good debater.
So I’m wondering if we can go back and hone our skills a little bit,
so we’re more point, counter-point, and much less personal.
Like, for example, what if we start creating posts that elicit discussion
and not dissension?
So let me give you an example, I could put a post up saying
Big Pharma and the relationship to the opioid crisis,
and I would make some qualifications,
no likes or dislikes, because that creates teams again.
You get to present your research and your information.
Now, just imagine if we weren’t in a defensive posture
how much more we could really learn from each other.
And finally, 90% of us purport to have a relationship with a higher power.
I’m wondering how close we are living that on social media.
So, for example, take the prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi,
and I’m just going to touch upon a few points there.
Are we seeking to be an instrument of peace? Are we sowing peace?
Are we sowing discontentment?
Are we seeking to understand or are we seeking to be understood?
When I look at posts,
I feel like everybody wants very much to be understood.
But maybe we could take some time to understand
why somebody else feels things a little bit differently than you.
And I’d like to end my talk with a little story:
There were 2 little boys on the playground and they were in an argument,
one little boy said that sky is blue, and the other little boy said
the sky is clearly gray.
Now they started getting really upset with each other
because they were both very certain that their perspective was right.
They started name calling and all that stuff,
and then the wise teacher approached, and he said:
“Boys, I need you to turn around”,
and so the one that had been insisting that the sky was blue saw
that from the other direction, there were storm clouds coming in,
and the sky appeared quite gray.
And the little boy that was insisting that the sky was gray,
saw that from the other direction, there were no storm clouds,
and so the sky was quite blue.
I’m wondering if we can try
to engage in a different way by turning around,
and trying to understand things from another's perspective.
I think that we will gain a lot with regard to connectiveness,
and I think we'll get much better utilization of social media.
Thank you for your time.