Social Media Superpowers: Listening & Sharing
Why they matter in digital spaces
Last week I had the honor of guest speaking at a “commander’s call.”
Let me back up.
Last fall I was inducted as a United States Air Force Academy Honorary Commander — an incredible opportunity to learn more in-depth about how USAFA achieves its mission of helping shape the next generation of Air and Space Force leaders. It’s a program designed to create and build relationships (something I love doing!) between a diverse group of community members and the Academy’s senior leadership to mutually broadening knowledge and community (something else I love doing!).
A key part of the program is getting paired with a senior level leader, and I have the distinct privilege of being paired with Lt. Col. Gloria Walski, Commander of the 10th Medical Support Squadron. She directs a health care budget of $97 million and leads seven diverse flights responsible for the health administration and ancillary services that support more than 700 medics at the 10th Medical Group and directly supports healthcare delivery to 222,000 eligible patients, which include 4,000 cadets at the United States Air Force Academy.
She is AWESOME! And she writes a great blog on leadership which you can check out here.
So I was deeply honored when Gloria asked me to guest speak at her commander’s call. Never having been to one before, I didn’t know what to expect, and I wanted to say something of value to this hard-working, dedicated squadron.
I hope I succeeded in that mission, and I’d like to share what I said with you. (Those of you who’ve been following me for a while will recognize some of it.)
Any time I speak about social media, I like to get a feel for where my audience is at. How many of you:
HATE social media. Think its one of the worst things humans have created.
LOVE social media. Think it’s absolutely fabulous.
Are MEH about social media. Don’t have strong feelings about it one way or another.
(The vast majority of the audience were MEH about social media.)
Usually when I ask that, the haters and in-betweeners far outnumber the people who love social media. I understand why. Social media doesn’t get a lot of good press. There’s always a new study about how it’s polarizing and dividing us, negatively impacting our mental health, disrupting our sleep cycles … and, of course, there are the security concerns.
Despite all that, I’m a big believer in the upsides of social media. I’ve seen it bring people together rather than drive them apart. I could talk for HOURS about all the amazing things it enables us to do, but I’ll limit myself to talking about two superpowers social media gives us when we use it purposefully and thoughtfully to connect with our fellow humans and create positive impact:
Listening and Sharing.
I love the (now old) television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and there’s an episode where Buffy gets infected by demon’s blood, which makes her hear the thoughts of everyone around her. And there are so many voices, so much confusion, anger, and loneliness, she can barely function.
That’s a lot like social media. So many thoughts and voices swirling around in cyberspace, it can be overwhelming.
But social media also gives us tremendous opportunities to learn — by choosing to listen to at least some of those voices. It gives us the chance to get to know people we would never encounter otherwise.
When we feel like we know someone, we are more open to seeing the world through their eyes, trying to understand them, and exploring solutions that take their concerns into consideration. The more someones we get to know, the more collaborative, creative, and inclusive we instinctively become.
Listening to the many, many ways people approach life helps us get past whatever barriers are preventing us from finding a way forward together.
Listening builds trust. It increases empathy. And can change our perspective.
Listening is a social media superpower.
In that Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode, Buffy hears one particular voice saying some alarming things. Concerned, she tracks down the source: a fellow high school classmate who's holding a gun. When she tries to talk him into giving it up, he gets angry. He says, “Don't talk to me like we're friends. We’re not friends. You think I'm an idiot.” And she says, so truthfully, “I don't think much about you at all. No one does. Everyone is ignoring your pain because they're way too busy with their own.”
Her stark honesty in that moment — the sharing of her experience and her pain — establishes a connection that diffuses the situation.
Sharing our experiences, the struggles we face, and even the mundane, simple moments of our daily lives lets others glimpse the real us — in all our complicated, messy, imperfection. It opens the door to connecting with those in similar situations, showing them they’re not alone, and maybe even encouraging them to reach out for support.
Social media gives us the power to add our stories to the shared catalog of human experiences.
It’s important for people to know there are others out there who’ve been where they are or are experiencing the same thing right now. Our willingness to tell our stories (whenever we’re ready and however feels right to us) normalizes them. Whatever we’re going through at the moment, there’s another person dealing with the same thing. Whatever lessons we’ve learned, there’s someone else who can benefit from them.
Embracing transparency and openness in our digital activity is often emotionally taxing and scary, but it can also lead to profound and important realizations. It reminds everyone that real lives are impacted by events, ideas, and decisions.
Instead of feeds teeming with perfect photos and triumphant moments, honest sharing floods social media with posts that say:
I see you.
I get it.
You're not alone.
Let's walk side by side together through this.
Sharing is a social media superpower.
There’s another, television show — a current one — that I love: GHOSTS. (I promise I don’t only watch supernatural shows!) But I think it’s an excellent allegory for the digital world full of voices from vastly different backgrounds that we live in. It’s about a group of people — well, two living people and several ghosts — who choose to make an extra effort to understand each other despite coming from different eras and cultures.
The laughs come from the characters constantly saying and doing things that make no sense or come across as odd and downright offensive to the others.
The heart of the show is the way the characters work together to find common ground and build a caring, inclusive, respectful community.
The key to their community-building is their mutual recognition that they need to listen and share to make sure they’re understanding each other. Characters often discover they’re not talking about the same thing even though they’re using the same words. Stories and examples that resonate with one character rarely make sense to the others, So they work to find synonyms or ways of explaining what they’re talking about. In doing so, they all learn things about each other, their communication improves, and their connection grows. Occasionally, characters even change their minds about deeply held beliefs.
To me, Ghosts presents a hopeful world where, despite considerable differences, people expend the effort it takes to get to know each other and purposefully grow and evolve together. It’s an example of how we can choose to behave in online spaces, and how our commitment to understanding each other can positively impact our physical world.
So whether you’re a social media lover, hater, or in-betweener, I hope this inspires you to do some listening or sharing in digital spaces to connect, increase empathy, and build a better world together.
Sharing this speech in this newsletter made me realize, I’ve never asked y’all this question!
It was such an honor to have you Lauren!