Time to Take a Social Media Vacation

A lot of professionals I know relieve stress with a few minutes on Facebook.com after they finish a phase of a project or need a break from their tasks.

Welcome to Facebook.com where you can bliss out on cute kitten photos, catch up with old friend, find a novel product, or play defense from aggressive people who pounce on your character to make a point. It’s weird. On one hand you get connection; on the other you get discord.

Some people just live to argue. They find sport in it.

They will savage any relationship to win, using all of the dirty-tactics: shaming, blaming, name-calling, citing arcane text that aren’t relevant to the conversation or YouTube.com conspiracy theory videos as a fact base. They project external examples that artificially quicken the original theme to hyperbole.

All of this questionable behavior just to win an argument, as if anyone outside of a high-school debating class ever actually wins. Gold star. You won an argument by bludgeoning the opponent, but lost a friend for life.

Then, there are politics. Social media works to raise awareness for very few open to learning something new, but serves as chum for some shark-like people hungry to feed on raw meat.

Sadly, everyone is so prewired by their positions that it seems as if we do not have an agreed upon basis of objective fact as a culture. Social media exposes a deep divide where even scientific facts can be disputed as facts because they came from a liberal university. It’s a strange day when people can choose their own reality, their own fact base, and not just their own beliefs, opinions, and interpretations of fact.

While it is a position of privilege to be able to take a break from vexing social issues for a week—and I caught ample grief from some friends for taking a short break, I suggest everyone takes a break for a week…a brief respite, a mental health period where you not only suspend posting and responding, but make it a practice to not judge others for this period for any reason, knowing that there is still truth in the old saying, “If you hang out in the middle of the road, plan on getting run over.”

The real tragedy is that it is impossible to explore an issue with real discernment and discourse on this medium. As an example, if I were to post “Do you find it immoral that children are being separated from their parents at the border,” I would be pounced upon by several camps: those who state that the former administration had started the policy, those who state it is an illegal action so it is justified, and those who are opposed for political reasons.

What is lost is real conversation. As you see, no one respected the root question and discussed the morals of the situation.

A week away from the every person debate allowed for deeper reflection and less stress.

Image credit: Pixabay

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Michael Graber is the managing partner of the Southern Growth Studio, an innovation and strategic growth firm based in Memphis, TN and the author of Going Electric. Visit www.southerngrowthstudio.com to learn more.