Daily Inspiration: “The most powerful lesson you can learn right now is that social media is not a really great place to have an argument.”

“The most powerful lesson you can learn right now is that social media is not a really great place to have an argument.” – Futurist Jim Carroll

I abhor the senseless attacks on Israel. At the same time, I know better than to carry my rage onto social media.

Social media has, through the years, become a toxic swamp, full of misinformation, angry people, and agenda-engineered bots. If you dare to venture into Twitter or TikTok, you’ll quickly find your personal outrage lit on fire. And it’s a particularly good time not to light your personal fire in the wrong place.

I go a long way back with this understanding. It was actually during the first Gulf War in 1990 that I got into an online rage fight with various people, as some sought some of the more extreme views around the conflict. ‘Social’ networks at the time were rather primitive from a technological perspective, yet still were built on a foundation of potential human frailty. My online world at that time quickly became an emotional swamp, and as I dove right in, I quickly; felt drained, overwhelmed, and rather depressed as I began to learn the downside of this machine.

I guess I learned around that time, some 33 years ago, that these marvelous online networks of human connectivity that we have built are absolute dumpster fires when it comes to complex times.

And so I learned back then not to participate online, and remind myself of that decision at these moments in time.

Ha-Makom yinachem etchem.