Now I understand why
I didn’t grow up with social media. In fact, I think it was around 2008 when I first joined Facebook, which seems like a long time ago now.
Before that, it probably wasn’t until the early 1990s that I started using computers and email in the workplace.
I have often thought about how difficult it must be for young people growing up with social media today. It was bad enough being a self-conscious teenager without having social media and people commenting on who you are, what you look like, what you should wear or even what you should do to yourself. I still find some of the things that happen online horrific. I simply cannot understand how somebody can be so cruel to another person.
I don’t post very much on social media myself. If I do, it is usually something for friends, perhaps a photo, and generally I receive nice comments. So, while I understood that social media could be harmful, perhaps I hadn’t really thought enough about why it has become so harmful.
Now I think I understand why.
We are currently selling our home of 32 years and it needs a little more traction. I thought I would share the listing in a couple of Facebook groups I belong to, including a local Buy Nothing group and a community group. These groups have administrators, so my view was that if my post was inappropriate, the administrator could remove it, and I would have been perfectly happy with that.
I posted that after 32 years our house was ready for the next people to make their own memories there and asked people to share it with anyone who might be interested.
Almost immediately, somebody commented, “I think you have the wrong group.” I asked why, and they pointed out that it was a Buy Nothing group. Fair enough — I could see the humour in that. Other people certainly did, with comments about being happy to collect the house and asking whether they could pick up the keys on Friday. I thought those comments were funny.
But then another person felt the need to comment about the link I had used for realestate.com and why that apparently wasn’t appropriate. I still don’t really understand what their point was.
It reminded me of another recent experience in the same group. I had noticed people giving away snake plants, which I have always known as mother-in-law’s tongue. I have a small patch in the garden where I thought one would be perfect because they are hardy and low maintenance. So I posted asking whether anybody had any mother-in-law’s tongue they could spare.
Someone responded: “Not appropriate.”
Apparently, they considered my use of the name “mother-in-law’s tongue” inappropriate.
I admit that one really riled me up. I looked it up and found that the plant is, in fact, commonly known as mother-in-law’s tongue, so I posted the Wikipedia link and simply replied, “Tell Wikipedia.”
But afterwards I thought about why such a small interaction had irritated me so much.
It also made me wonder whether the same person would have said this to me face-to-face. If we were standing in a garden centre and I said, “I’m looking for a mother-in-law’s tongue for my garden,” would she really have walked up to me and said, “That’s not appropriate. I don’t like what you called that plant”? I think we probably know the answer to that. Yet sitting behind a keyboard somehow makes people feel that they need to say things they would most likely never say to a stranger face-to-face. And perhaps that is part of the problem.
It took me back to when email first became common in workplaces. I have always preferred communicating by email rather than face-to-face in many situations. That is simply my preference, and I don’t think I should feel guilty about that. We all communicate differently.
That also makes me think about the number of diagnoses we now give people for being different. I sometimes wonder whether I am somewhere on a spectrum myself and whether I would ever bother seeking a diagnosis. I wonder how worthwhile some labels are when perhaps something is not necessarily “wrong” or even something that makes us different — perhaps it is simply part of who we are.
Everybody is different. We have different freckles, skin, hair, fingernails, clothes, personalities and different ways of looking at things. Even identical twins will have different preferences and different ways of seeing the world.
The problem with email was never the email itself. It was the emergence of what we came to call the “keyboard warrior” — people who would say things to somebody in an email that they would probably never say to their face.
I think social media has taken that to another level.
Everybody seems to feel that they need to have a comment about something. Behind a keyboard we can be faceless, and now we can even be completely anonymous.
I see posts in community groups from “anonymous participants” and sometimes wonder why anonymity is necessary. I remember one anonymous person posting about a house in our area that they believed belonged to a “hoarder”. They wanted people to tell them who lived there because they apparently wanted to help them.
My immediate thought was: why are you anonymous? And, more importantly, is this actually any of your business?
If there was a genuine concern for somebody’s welfare, there are appropriate authorities and services that could be contacted. Sometimes we can be a bystander and genuinely help somebody. But sometimes, by inserting ourselves into somebody else’s life when they have not asked for our help, are we actually doing more harm?
There may be many reasons why someone posts anonymously, and I accept that. But I think anonymity can also make it easier for people to say things they might never say if their name and face were attached to their words.
And that brings me back to social media and why I now understand a little more about the harm it can cause.
I am an adult. I didn’t grow up with social media. I am reasonably confident in who I am, and yet a couple of completely unnecessary comments from strangers managed to really irritate me.
So what must it be like for a self-conscious teenager?
What happens when the comments are not about the name of a plant or where somebody posted their house advertisement? What happens when they are about someone's face, body, clothes, sexuality, personality, intelligence or whether they fit in?
Perhaps the people making these comments don’t even believe they are causing harm. The person who told me “mother-in-law’s tongue” was inappropriate may genuinely have believed they were doing the right thing by correcting me.
But not every thought needs to become a comment.
Social media can obviously do good. It connects families and friends, creates communities and allows people to share information and experiences. I experience those benefits myself.
But it has also given everybody a platform to comment, criticise, correct and judge other people, sometimes anonymously and often unnecessarily.
My experiences were insignificant in the overall scheme of things. Nobody seriously harmed me. But they made me understand something I had previously only observed from a distance.
Now I understand why the harm caused through social media has become so pervasive.
Sometimes before commenting on another person’s post, perhaps we simply need to ask ourselves: Does this actually need to be said? Is it helpful? Have I actually been asked for my opinion? Because if I haven’t been asked, perhaps I simply should not stick my nose in. I might think I am being helpful, but that does not mean the other person wants or needs my advice. Sometimes the most appropriate response is simply to keep scrolling.
Stop it, people. You may be doing harm.
I have many wise friends but one wise friend says often ‘every day someone surprises me’ – yep they do!
