Social Media

Social media gets a lot of bad press.  We spend too much time on it and not enough time moving and this is leading to obesity and other related diseases.  There is so much fake news on social media that it makes it difficult to discern what or who you should trust for information.  There are stalkers and trolls on social media, thus, you are putting you and your family's security at risk every time you log on.  It is destroying our society because we prefer to text each other rather than walk into another room to talk to each other. 

It reminds me of two surprising pieces of advice that I have gotten from my brother-in-law, John.  John is simply one of the wisest people I know. When I was a teenager, I told him about the problems facing my generation such as unprecedented access to drugs and peer pressure to do substances.  I fully expected him to acknowledge my point.  As an adult, he was very involved in the "just say no" campaign.  He said that every generation faced strife that was thought to be greater than the one before.  He pointed to a quote by Aristotle circa 300 BC.  In that quote, it noted that parents were bemoaning their teenagers as being disrespectful and thinking they knew more than their parents.  Times haven't changed that much.  The other surprising piece of advice that he gave me was when I was choosing a husband.  I said the most important factor to me was choosing someone who was a good father.  At the time, my brother-in-law was the best parent that I had ever witnessed.  Next to my own father, of course, I would definitely nominate him for Greatest Dad.  He told me to ignore that criteria.  He said choose a husband that will be your best friend.  Parenting is hard work and you will need a best friend at the end of the day to help you recharge, and eventually your children will leave, so you better be best friends for the person remaining in your house. 

So, as John surprised me, maybe social media will surprise us.  Perhaps it is not as horrid as people profess.  I am not saying it is all great and there are risks involved.  But, frankly, there are risks to every activity we engage in.  Most of us get into a moving vehicle every day and actuaries tell us that this is often the most risky decision they will make that day.  I am sure that many government workers in the United States didn't realize they were making a risky decision when they decided to work for the federal government.  As of today, 800,000 are without a paycheque. 

Yes, we have to be wary about social media.  It is only one thing that we have to be wary of, and it is not necessarily the biggest threat to our society. 

Yesterday, I found something on social media that might turn out to be a turning point for me.  Something bad happened to me in 2003. It is a long time ago but I'm still not over it.  It doesn't affect me every day and I've done everything I can to put it behind me.  Some people have known me over 10 years and I haven't told them.  There is a pattern in my life.  Whenever my anxiety feels that I am in danger, it goes into full throttle because of what happened to me.  I know my anxiety is trying to express kindness to me by protecting me.  Unfortunately, when my anxiety goes into full throttle, my emotional resilience weakens.  So, when stress in my life causes distress, the thing that happened to me interferes with my life.  Not too long ago, a male colleague was causing stress in my life.  My resilience was worn down and I wasn't coping well.  I told him what I had been through.  He didn't express empathy instead he expressed that I told him this three times in less than a month. 

Anyway, although every single person is going through something or has survived something, I really thought that my situation was a unique circumstance.  Sometimes what happened to me seems so unbelievable that I don't even believe it myself.  Then, yesterday, on social media, I found it.  Almost 16 years later, I found a closed chat room of people who survived what I survived.  The exact same thing.  There is only 9 members.  To me, that seems like 900.  I thought I was the only one, and it turns out, there are eight others in North America.  I can't tell you what this means to me.  To be able to talk about what happened whenever I want with people who have been through it.  To offer my experience and advise about what worked for me with people who are just going through it.  Essentially, I almost have to stop and take some deep breathes after every sentence I write.  It is that significant to me.  There is no way possible that the 9 of us could ever get together if not for social media. 

About a week ago, I remembered someone I knew in high school.  We didn't know each other well, but she had an impact on my life and I wondered if she was ok.  I found her smiling face on social media and was able to confirm that she was not just ok, but she was fabulous.  The images of that smiling face stayed with me for the entire day and made it a great day.  As it happens, she has the cutest puppy that she adores.  The images of that adorable dog kept me happy for an additional day. 

Sadly, there will always be nefarious people in the world out to cause harm.  It is those people we need to be wary.  Social media itself is just something that exists.  There is a lot of harm that can result, but for every story of harm, there is a story of goodness.  It turns out the bad of social media could not happen without a user behind the keyboard.