I have a love/hate relationship with social media. On the one hand it has allowed me to make my writing public even if just for a handful of people. On the other hand it has opened the very keen possibility of having people lambast me for my thoughts. 

I am so happy that social media has provided me with the opportunity to reconnect with people from so many of the junctures of my life. It’s wonderful to see how they are doing and to realize where their lives led them after we parted. At the same time the honest comments that come from people that I have known sometimes shock me because they provide way more information about them than I actually wanted to know. In some cases my own honesty has led long term friendships to sour or even end. 

Most of what I dislike about social media involves things that I see from strangers that are ugly, racist and judgmental. Sometimes I know that what people are posting is an outright lie whose purpose is to turn us against each other. All in all because I am an older woman with a great deal of living under my belt I am able to ignore the worst aspects of social media. Nonetheless I worry about how it is affecting younger individuals or persons who are already fighting demons of their own.

Social media has become a political hammer in many regards, bashing people and groups and ideas with hateful rhetoric and lies. The untruths are the worst and quite often people do not take the time to determine what is real and what is not. Some of the worst possible posts come from our president who likes to air his grievances with anger and threats. 

Right now the official government site of the United States is pushing a series of computer games supposedly designed for children that are so horrific that they should be widely condemned. In one of them the goal is to detain and arrest as many brown skinned illegal aliens as possible. Once a figure is captured the screen dresses them with orange jumpsuits and congratulates the player for ridding the world of the despicable characters. 

It is difficult for me to imagine adults who seem to worry so much about whether or not the ten commandments are posted in classrooms or that our children are reading questionable books would endorse the kind of hate that these games provide. Never in the history of our nation has a president been so openly vile about certain groups of people and even certain persons. The example that he provides to our youngest citizens is crude and vile. Surely they see him bullying his perceived enemies and begin to think that acting that way is okay. 

Stories of young people being harassed and beaten down on social media are legendary, sometimes even leading their deaths. Once a hateful post is online it might stay there forever making it almost impossible for the victim to ever again find peace of mind. For those of us who have lived through he slings and arrows of life for many years ignoring is easy, For a child who is still in the process of becoming it can be impossible to simply look the other way. 

I don’t know what the answer to social media actually is but I believe that it has in many ways created far too many problems and complications in the world. We have to spend so much time determining what is true and what is not as well as laughing off horrific comments aimed at making us feel small. It is as though under the screen of the internet people believe that they have permission to hurl threats and create lies. 

I suppose that someone reading this post might argue that when I complain about the president I am actually spreading the kind of hate that I so totally dislike. The difference is that Trump is speaking as the leader of our nation and as such he should be more uniting than dividing. He is supposed to be leading us all, not just those who bow to his every whim. He wants to be able to call people pigs but grows angry when someone pushes back with an insult of their own. 

Social media has been mostly good to me. I have enjoyed the good side of Facebook but I don’t go much beyond that. I don’t do Instagram or TikTok and I rarely find my way back to X. I lie Bluesky and Substack where I follow certain people for information. I do write my own opinion pieces in my blogs but nobody has to read them and I try to choose my words carefully but honestly. Most of the time they do not venture into political issues but when something is bothering me I exercise my right to point out what I see as problems in our nation or world.

I suppose that throughout history there have been aspects of living that have been both good and bad. Perhaps one day we will learn how to use social media in positive ways. Until them I’ll keep writing and enjoying the kinship with people who mean so much to me. I hope my points of view do not bother them too much.