Digital Habits

In life and Social Media, do what is right and not what is easy.

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We all know social media started and thrived by creating easily shared contents in easy to use platforms. Instant connections with instant results. However much this has enriched our lives and broadened our horizons, life is not so simple.

Very little after social media started blooming, the problems behind social media began Identity theft, Cyber-bullying, increased human trafficking and child pornography, and huge self-esteem issues in teenagers and adults.

The focus on “easy” has gone away, and while things may be easy to use, we need to assess our behaviors, patterns, and interactions on social media and other digital platforms. We are currently facing the challenge of finding information that is valid and true. We look for platforms and public figures that will be our benchmarks for the things we like or need. We regulate comments and behaviors in different outlets, facing rude or discriminatory contents without sanction or consequence.

What do we do? What is it that we as users can do to make social media a better platform?

We need to support with our digital actions and participation the contents that we deem right, true and reliable. While also encouraging new generations to do the same. Our role as content curators of the digital world is continuous. There is more information generated every day on social media than any administrator or platform can regulate. However, there are plenty of users just like us who can share their input, edit, censor or prevent abuse within social media.

If you like content, take the time to like it, comment on why it is good, valid, true or constructive. Engage with the posts and mutimedia contents and actually watch the videos or listen to the audios. Whatever you let go without interaction will lose traction. And if while you browse, you come into something that you find offensive, untrue, or harmful… report it. If you think you’re being extremely conservative, as you go through the process of reporting the post or contents, the questions that the platform will post to you, will help you discern whether you are right or wrong about it.

It is easy to let things go. It is easy to dismiss content. It is easy to complain about how shallow or untrue digital information has become. However, all of us as users allowed it to become so. Developers have understood their responsability through hard lessons in recent years, but the bulk of the job comes back to us as content curators of the digital world. That definitely changes our mind about thinking that we are “powerless” while facing digital beasts. The truth is we make them beasts. We feed them and watch them grow every day. We have an active role in letting them live or bringing them down, one post and one like at a time.

Continue to do the right thing, and help us spread the word. Please share

Business Strategist

Business coach and consultant for collaborative, sustainable and holistic businesses. Focused on the use of digital technology to connect, develop, and empower users and communities.

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