Hi everyone! Thanks for being here! My book Digital Kindness: Being Human in a Hyper-Connected World turns 5 this month! To celebrate, I’m working on an audio book version (something I’ve wanted to do for a long time). Here’s a rough cut of Chapter 1. Also, the written e-version will be available for FREE digital download from June 28-July 2, 2024.
If you’d like to bring my Digital Kindness talk or workshops to your company, organization, or group, please contact me here! Together we can transform digital spaces into kinder places.
[TRANSCRIPT]
People love to complain about the downsides of digital media. There is always some new study about how it ruins relationships, destroys civil discourse, gives rise to “fake news”, impacts our sleep cycles, causes people to become depressed or anxious, and puts additional pressure on teens to conform and pander for “likes.” But much of the negativity about digital activity seems to assume that we are – and have no choice but to be – passive consumers of this technology.
I have a different view. I believe social media gives us unprecedented power to explore our world and the incredible complexity, beauty, and breadth of humanity in countless ways. It can make us more aware, more understanding, more effective, and more human. It can bring us together rather than drive us apart. Heal instead of hurt …
If we choose to use it that way.
How many people can you connect with in a lifetime?
For previous generations – those that lived before innovations in transportation and communication – the number was relatively small. Connections were limited to a circle of immediate family, friends, and others living and working within the same physical community. Exposure to ideas and life experiences outside of the small circle came at an arm’s-length – through letters, periodicals, and books, and later through radio, television, and film. Outside voices didn’t often invade everyday life with an immediacy and relevance that demanded attention.
Digital communication has vastly expanded our ability to connect with people far beyond our families, friends, and physical communities. It connects us with an increasing number of strangers every day. Social media puts the stories, images, and thoughts of outsiders and people we barely know alongside those of our most cherished loved ones.
We read the thoughts of strangers in the comments sections of online publications. We’re exposed to people we don’t know through discussions on a friend’s Facebook, Instagram, or blog post. We constantly open ourselves up to commentary and perspectives from people we’ve never met (and will probably never meet in person) when we use Twitter or Instagram or YouTube or any number of other “public” social media channels.
How are we to navigate interactions with these outsiders who are becoming a very real and hard-to-ignore presence in our daily lives? How should we behave toward those who enter our lives through digital means – both those who say and do things that hurt or infuriate us as well as those we seem to connect with and bond with quickly? Are these digital connections real? Should we treat them as real people with real lives or is it okay to treat them as fictional characters because we don’t encounter them in physical spaces?
Digital communication also shows us different sides of those we already know. How should we react when family, friends, and those we know in one specific context (work, the gym, a shared hobby, etc.) say or do something in a digital space that shocks us, hurts us, worries us, or causes us to reevaluate our relationship with them? Should we call them out publicly? Interact with them privately? Or sever ties completely?
“Social media has become such an integrated component of human interaction,” says Brian A. Primack, M.D., Ph.D, Director of the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Research on Media, Technology, and Health. “It’s important … to recognize the balance to be struck in encouraging potential positive use, while redirecting from problematic use.”
Since the dawn of digital communication, we’ve been consuming social media without much reflection on how it impacts us, how it changes the way we interact, and how it changes what we know about people (both friends and strangers). But digital media has matured. It has been around long enough for us to stop passively consuming and mindlessly reacting and start using it in purposeful and thoughtful ways. We can educate ourselves, protect ourselves, connect with others, and create positive impact in our communities and the larger world.
It’s time to be purposeful about our digital behavior – harnessing its power for good and being conscious of the ways it causes harm.
It’s time to practice digital kindness.
With the click of a button we can communicate instantly with someone on the other side of the planet – someone we would never encounter through other means. We can “get to know them” on their terms, observing their life through the stories and photos they choose to share on social media channels. We can see what matters to them. How they think. What they are experiencing.
Social media breaks down barriers by allowing us to see the common threads that unite humanity – love, joy, excitement, triumph, grief, pain, loss, fear. Real lives are on display all across the digital world – and we can learn a lot by using it to see, listen, and connect.
Social media gives us unprecedented opportunity to have a positive impact one-to-one, locally, and even globally by being purposeful about our digital behavior. When we are thoughtful and honest in digital spaces, we can forge meaningful relationships, engage in constructive dialogue, and crowdsource custom solutions. We can build communities that transcend cultures, borders, and languages.
We can use social media this way. But that’s not how most of us choose to use it.
Instead of building bridges and connections with others, we tend to use social media to focus on ourselves — our views, our perspectives, our grievances. We sometimes forget there are human beings on the other side of the screen … or we simply don’t think about the impact our posts could have on those with different lives, different realities, and different ideas.
Social media lacks context and social cues, leading us to extremes we would avoid when interacting in person. This thoughtless, careless approach to social media is causing real harm in the real world.
Digital kindness begins with a commitment to embracing positivity. I’m not talking about forced smiles or an overly chipper outlook. I’m not recommending a steady broadcast of inspirational quotes. Embracing positivity simply means choosing to communicate in a friendly and upbeat way. It means going out of our way to demonstrate goodwill, assume positive intent, and act with care, and concern for fellow human beings.
Committing to positivity also means not using social media to routinely vent, argue, or contribute to ugliness. None of us is perfect, and we’ll all have a day here or there where we see social media as our best outlet for expressing strong opinions or emotions, but perpetually engaging in angry, heated, long-winded rants is not kind.
Angry, heavy-handed, one-sided posts don’t build solid relationships and foster understanding. They fan the flames of frustration and discontent, reinforcing feelings of hopelessness and despair. No one is going to change their mind about anything because of some argument on social media. Perhaps, more importantly, we may never even know how many people saw the argument and decided to never engage with us (or the other participants) again. Civil discourse, on the other hand, can go a long way toward establishing common ground and understanding.
Digital kindness provides a framework for interacting with friends and strangers in ways that benefit both them and us. It enables us to forge authentic connections in a world of virtual reality. It protects us from the real hurt caused by thoughtless digital behavior. It results in real friendships that add richness and diversity to our lives. It’s something we can practice every day.
Together, we can transform digital spaces into kinder places.
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