Has Social Media Damaged Your Faith In Humanity?

I saw a question posted today asking if social media has negatively affected your belief in democracy. I replied no, but that it has increased my respect for politicians. Just LOOK at the range of ideas and approaches to argumentation even among people who want the same things and agree on the same basic values. Then look at it between people of core DISAGREEMENTS. Holy crap.

Just a few thoughts, in no specific order:

1. Not agreeing on definitions. Often, they will argue without even knowing what they are arguing about: they haven’t defined basic terms.

“You are a Y!” “YOU are an X!” they scream back and forth. But did you see anyone stop and clearly define what a “Y” or an “X” is? And have you noticed how, when people DO agree on the definitions of words, how often the argument becomes a sane discussion?

2. Imposing their values, even if those values are disastrous. For instance: When speaking of popular entertainment, or news of a relatively trivial nature (the Sony-Disney scuffle over Spider-Man. Popeye’s new Spicy Chicken sandwich) there will always be someone who says “how can you waste time talking about things like this! There are so many important things to think about in life.”

Pardon me if I increasingly suspect that the people who say things like this overlap with the group that complains that they are frightened, burned out, and exhausted by stress in life.