Life Actually: Is social media making us bitter?
I remember the early days of social media, when we were excited to simply share space.
We couldn’t get enough of each other, and we spent hours catching up and reconnecting with old friends.
Today, sadly, that congeniality is gone. Too much time together has hardened us and made us quick to assume, judge, argue or get annoyed. After years of sharing life highlights, we think we know each other better than we do. We struggle with envy, resentment, inadequacy and constant life comparisons.
We’re different people than we were a decade ago, and more drastic than changes on the internet are the changes in internet users. Collectively, we’ve grown testy and dismissive, quick to write off or tell off anyone who doesn’t agree with us 100%.
The problem, of course, is that no two people see eye to eye on everything. Even best friends can have opposing opinions, and that’s OK if they are respectful.
On social media, however, we get to skip the real-life challenge of trying to work through differences and instead join tribes. While tribes are beneficial in uniting like-minded friends, problems arise when tribes become echo chambers where the only voices and stories heard affirm existing beliefs.
In these chambers, pride grows, minds shrink and tribes fall under the illusion that they are always right and everyone else is always wrong. They forget how even a broken clock is right twice a day, and everyone we encounter has something to teach us.
After years of observing internet users, I’ve noticed how people often miss the big point of a message because they focus on one detail they disagree with. On one story I wrote, a man commented that he liked it until I “lost him at God.” A woman responded with a thought-provoking reply.
“I’m an atheist,” she wrote, “but I still found a lot of takeaways here. Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater.”
It takes maturity to find common ground despite different convictions, yet this mindset isn’t the norm. Instead, we’re letting disagreements turn into hatred and turning on people we once loved.
Ultimately this hurts us. It turns our hearts into stone, creating blind spots and egos. It’s often said that holding on to resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die — it hurts us more than them — and this concept applies to the internet, too.
By dwelling on every post that rubs us wrong, every perceived or real offense, we park our minds in a dark and dismal place.
Is social media making us bitter? I believe it is — yet I also believe we can stop this train. Too many people today are walking around with scowls, searching for someone to dump their pain on, and if you want more from your life, here are seven things you can do.
► Work through your resentments daily so little grudges don’t become big grudges.
► Listen to people’s stories, developing a healthy curiosity for why they are and why think the way they do.
► Treat bitterness as an internal problem, not an external problem, and a sign you may have a heart issue that needs some attention.
► Think for yourself and don’t believe everything you read, especially with the mob mentality.
► Be aware of your vulnerabilities and open wounds so you don’t act from a place of pain.
► Know the internet isn’t the devil, but the devil is using it to distance us from God and each other.
► Understand your limited perspective, for what you see online about anyone is just a slice of who they are.
Bob Goff, in his book “Everybody, Always,” says: “We’re all rough drafts of the people we’re still becoming.” Only the love of Christ can soften our hearts of stone and help us root for each other despite our differences and flaws.
Life is too short to live bitter. Social media has too much potential for good to be used for so much harm. Some people will always act ugly or rude, yet they teach us what paths to avoid. They illustrate what can happen when bitterness takes root.
I like social media for many reasons, and despite the current atmosphere, I see a pendulum swing of people who long for more: more positivity, more good news, more hope for common ground.
If there’s any tribe I’m drawn to, it is big-picture thinkers who can be respectful and kind even when they disagree. They may not be the loudest voices, but they’re worth tuning into. They restore my faith in humanity and set a bar for what is possible even in uncongenial times like these.