In a world of restless, relentless change, we all use social media to connect and communicate. But it will be a better, smarter world if we exercise a duty of care in the way we put these powerful tools to work.
If you ask my Mom what I do for a living, she’ll say that I get paid to mess around on Facebook. This is not true. I get paid to ALSO mess around on Twitter, Instagram, SnapChat, Whatsapp, Reddit … I LOVE social media.
I also love dystopian fiction, where writers take ideas and explore them in bleak imaginary worlds.
Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, written in 1931, explores how to profoundly change society through psychological manipulation rather than brute force, where citizens are lulled into generalised states, happily losing their individual identities.
George Orwell’s 1984, written in 1948, describes a world where society is controlled by Big Brother survelliance, denial of the truth and propaganda.
So what do these books have to do with social media? Think on those main concepts and how they play out on your social media channels.
Surveillance? As we know, everything on social media, while it may seem fleeting, is actually permanent and trackable including – and I can’t stress this enough – SnapChat, Whatsapp, Insta stories – places you think have closed or disappearing content.
So everything you say on social can be tracked. Add CCTV and Big Brother, the 1984 ‘watching presence’ is officially a real thing.
Denial of the truth and propaganda? Donald Trump, fake news, using the phrase alt-right instead of white supremacy … check.
And the lulling of people into complacency, as in Huxley’s vision? Look what happened while we were taking selfies, picking over each other’s pics and reading clickbait Buzzfeed articles about reality TV stars. Donald Trump became the leader of the (increasingly less) Free World.
This is the digital world you are living in, and it’s different. For the first time in centuries, we have stocks in the Town Square where we can throw tomatoes at people.
We all have our own megaphones, our own newsletters and own TV stations, and we are only ever a click away from getting swept up into a mob frenzy. It’s got really mean out there, really publically.
What does this mean for you? There is a duty of care on everyone in the world, that we each must learn how to manage in social media.
There are the obvious practical rules.
1. Don’t ever share your password
2. Don’t give out personal information on social media, which includes not posting anything while your location is public.
3. Keep your privacy settings closed to just friends and family
4. Don’t text an ex in the middle of the night.
5. Don’t post anything you wouldn’t want your parents to see (Did I mention it merely takes a screen grab from Whatsapp, Steam or SnapChat for your secret or disposable thoughts to become both permanent and public?)
6. Interrogate where you are getting your news from, don’t just swallow it like so much clickbait.
7. You are a person, not a commentator, liker or follower. You are actually speaking to other people whenever you express any opinions on social media.
8. Cyberbullying and public shaming have and will continue to lead to everything from real hurt to broken lives and even suicide. It’s cruel and inhumane.
But to me, it really boils down to this quote from Kurt Vonnegut:
We are who we pretend to be, so we must be careful about who we pretend to be.
Look at your timelines, feeds, comments, likes and shares on social media. Is that who you want to be?
I have now been on social media for over 20 years. (If you don’t think that’s possible, Google IRC chat rooms.) And who do I, a 40-something privileged white South African woman, want to be? I find myself wanting – more and more – not to publish but to listen.
For me, social media is now not so much about trumpeting my own views, but more about listening to others, to following Black Twitter, Middle Eastern journalists, Kenyan tech entrepeneurs. I’ve heard listening described as leaning forward, prepared to be changed by what you hear.
To me, the biggest challenge of white people in the world is to learn to listen. And social media, if you learn to follow and sort and manage it properly, is the most fantastic place ever invented to connect with fascinating people who are not like you, from all over the world. It’s a place where you can lean in and listen and be changed every single day.
When I was asked to speak today, the first thing I did was use my social feeds to ask other people what they thought. Many of those ideas are referenced in the practical rules I gave you, but there were two quotes that came up on my personal timelines that I thought I’d share.
I asked ‘If there was only one piece of social media advice you could share with school children what would it be?
Journalist Gus Silber said:
‘Have fun with social media. Invent, experiment, create and explore. Use it to make art, use it to let your voice be heard. Figure out the boundaries and the possibilities for yourself. And then, having done that, roll your eyes, sigh, and tell the adults in your life, for goodness sake, to stop fretting so much.’
SA internet and tech fundi Arthur Goldstuck simply said:
‘You are writing your future.’
And in many ways, that’s true. So, be nice out there. Be yourselves out there.
* This is an edited version of a speech given by the author to students and staff of the Cedar House School in Cape Town.
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