Katie’s Musings: Social Media

This will probably come as no surprise to anyone:  I’m a huge fan of social media, particularly for churches.  Social media, in its many forms, means that free/cheap advertising and accidental evangelization is possible for any church that has a computer/smartphone and a human who knows how to run it.  Possibilities are now endless when it comes to connection, and the transference of information, between people and entities, the imparting of knowledge, the resources at our fingertips, all of those things have been entirely democratized through social media.  And those things are awesome.

As the recent election has proven, however, this is entirely a double-edged sword.    When everyone gets to have an opinion, it’s guaranteed that some of those opinions are going to be entirely fictional at best, and at worst, downright damaging.  Social media has also amped up our human, reactionary tendencies:  we see something stated that we disagree with, and rather than walking away like we may do if we were face to face, the itch to be right starts to nag us and the gloves come off.  And we say things that are hurtful, we ruin friendships and relationships, we spout facts and figures without knowing whether or not they are true, etc.  Social media, in short, can – and frequently does – turn us into the worst versions of ourselves, while simultaneously making us feel entirely powerless.

Unfortunately, I do not have enough space in this column to address all of those things, nor to I possess a magic wand to spirit away all the negative away from the inevitability that is social media at this point…. But I will, if I may, offer this thought, in hopes that it might offer some comfort.  It does to me:  social media is one place in which we are actually the opposite of powerless.  As long as we resist the temptation to be solely reactionary in what we post and how we engage.

See, the number one rule of social media is that every ounce of content that is put out into the interwebs is only as powerful as the consumer of that media allows it to be.  An individual or company or church can create the most beautiful, thoughtful, buzzy piece of online content.  But the power or reach it will have relies only on how many people engage with it.  In other words, the power is solely in the mouse click of the content consumer.

Moreover, algorithms that dictate what we see or don’t see in a virtual space track our online movements automatically, and they are not built to recognize nuance or understand the motivations behind clicking onto something.  For example, let’s say you see something on the internet that you are pretty sure is legitimately false, perpetrates a lie, is hateful or hurtful, degrading in some way, or just generally bad or dumb, and you decided to click on it, not to read it, but simply to give the creator a piece of your mind.   In that moment, you have done precisely what the creator of that content had hoped:  amplified the content to more consumers.  Boosted their reach.  It doesn’t matter why you engaged with it, and they probably don’t actually care about the angry comment you left.  The point is that you engaged, the creator got your view, and that’s really all they wanted from you in the first place.  You used the power you have to actually dictate virtual spaces and in doing so, played directly into their hands.

But fear not, good people, fear not!  Technology moves fast, changing at every turn, and it’s not too late!  The path forward is simple:  think before you click.  Check and crosscheck your sources before you share.  Don’t retweet something you really disagree with, even if it’s the vehicle for a retort.  And really, wait 10 seconds before responding to/retweeting an (probably purposefully) inflammatory post or tweet or video and ask yourself if the satisfaction you will feel from responding or arguing is worth amplifying the original message further to more consumers of media.  If you still feel called to respond to the person-of-origin, consider confrontation via private message or email, where it is more likely an actual dialogue can take place than on a public wall and where public data is less likely to be collected.

The important thing to remember about social media is that the consumer shapes its overarching effectiveness, full stop.  We can choose what narrative to further through our actions online, and in doing so, we can absolutely change the narrative of the online world.  It takes time and a lot of caution, but I suspect it also just might actually help with our own online sanity in the long run.

Blessings,
Katie