To Speak or Not to Speak
Respecting different approaches to digital discourse
In this digitally-connected world, we’re witnessing a multitude of tremendously heavy, heart-breaking, and horrific events on a daily basis. The images, news stories, and commentary are interspersed with vacation photos, cute pet pics, and happy, funny, mundane moments from our friends and family. It’s hard to process, and it’s hard to know how to (or if we’re even supposed to ) respond.
We’re all doing something no humans have ever done before. We’re navigating uncharted territory with no clear roadmap or destination. No one before us had to think about how to manage a never-ending stream of digital stimuli — or had to think about what we post (or don’t post) on social media might tell others about us.
We’re still learning how to engage with a multitude of narratives in digital spaces. We’re figuring out how to define our own identity and values without the centering (or alienating) influence of a handful of dominant stories. It’s complicated, to say the least.
Right now, my feeds are full of posts asking why people aren’t speaking up on social media. Some posts demand people speak. Others cast varying degrees of aspersion on anyone who isn’t doing so.
These posts are important contributions to digital discourse because they humanize the urgency and dire nature of an issue. They cause people to pay closer attention to something they might otherwise gloss over. They compel people to think about their role in addressing the matter.
But it’s okay to listen rather than speak. Listening in digital spaces is important too. It may change our own perspective and help us find ways forward together. A message as simple as “I’m listening to you” or “thank you for sharing” can demonstate you value what someone has to say.
It’s also okay to set and honor our own boundaries regarding what we do and don’t want to talk about on social media. It’s okay to give ourselves time and space to grapple with serious topics and to decide if we want to say anything about them in digital spaces and what we want to say.
The ability to gauge our feelings and temper our physiological responses to ideas and various forms of content is one tremendous advantage of engaging in digital spaces. We don’t always have time or feel secure enough to evaluate our feelings or reactions when dealing with someone face-to-face.
Online interactions, on the other hand, allow us to take all the time we need to reflect on how we’re feeling and decide whether we want to engage. We have a “right to turn off the comments when they become too toxic,” says Nesrine Malik in We Need New Stories. Farrah Alexander, author of Raising the Resistance, concurs: “You don’t owe anyone a debate. You are free to express whatever opinion you’d like, and there is not a punishment that you must reply thoughtfully to every mansplaining goof demanding a debate. Just turn off notifications and walk away.”
When we don’t have the capacity to conduct healthy conversations and relationships in digital spaces, not speaking is a way to honor our fatigue and depth of feeling. We need to respect our own well-being, giving ourselves the time and space we need to recharge.
Sometimes when we choose to speak up in digital spaces, we’ll do it in a less than ideal way. That’s okay too. “We’re just fallible humans doing our best,” says Alexander. “We strive to be good people who try their damnedest to do some good in the world and leave it a better place than when we found it. That matters, that counts.”
I agonize over almost every post I create in digital spaces. I truly want to be compassionate, understanding, and kind, so I consider multiple ways my words could be interpreted. I look for blind-spots and potential insensitivities. I edit and rewrite to use more inclusive language and examples. After several attempts, I often decide not to post at all.
I’ve gotten it “wrong” before, and I fear getting it “wrong” again. But that means my voice — one that’s attempting to spread benevolence instead of outrage in digital spaces — is raised far less often than those people who fire off angry, snarky, ill-considered reactions to everything under the sun.
I often hear from people who’ve read Digital Kindness and/or Digital Grace that I’m the little voice in their head telling them not to post something fiery. It means a lot to me that people take my work to heart. But if I’m that voice in your head, I’m giving you permission to engage without second-guessing every post. The world needs more content from people who care about using social media to make positive change. It helps balance out the discord and ugliness some seem determined to sow.
The algorithms are designed to deliver conflict, and we’re sometimes going to find ourselves pulled into it, disappearing into echo chambers, or retreating all together. But what matters most is that we’re more often than not demonstrating care for our fellow digital sojourners and striving to make online spaces better for all.
When we inevitably stumble, owning up to it and apologizing demonstrates our general goodwill and positive intent. “Admitting mistakes reveals your humanness,” says Sarah L. Kaufman in The Art of Grace. “It’s more graceful to acknowledge messing up than to shield yourself behind a mask of perfection.”
Perfection is the last thing we need in digital spaces. Too many people try to project impossible, unattainable images on social media, putting immense pressure on flawed humans navigating new dynamics and unfamiliar spaces. But humility and humanness unite us, reminding us that we’re exploring this world together.
By listening, making room for different approaches, and admitting our own mistakes, we make it okay for others to participate in digital spaces as their flawed and full selves.
Digital Kindness Journal Prompt #6
Map your social media activity for the past week.
Use one color to highlight activity you see as positive (things that contributed positively to your life). Use another color to highlight activity you see as negative (things that made you feel anxious, upset, or other unpleasant emotions). What do you notice?
Make a plan to increase your positive social media activity next week.
Brainstorm ways to transform negative social media activities from last week into activities that create positive emotions.
My Digital Kindness Journal: a year of guided reflections for compassionate social media use contains an outline for developing your personal digital kindness plan based on what you discover from 50+ prompts and a month of reflections on your social media activity and experiences.
MISCELLANEA
This newsletter now has over 1,000 subscribers! Thank you to all of you for choosing to be here, sending notes of encouragement, asking insightful questions, and sharing my work with your networks. Together we can harness the power of social media to share the world we want to see!
Speaking of sharing the world we want to see, please take 10 minutes to watch the inspiring TED Talk by Sofia Ongele, a 22-year-old web developer and Director of Digital Strategy for Gen-Z for Change, titled “Your Creative Superpowers Can Help Protect Democracy.” One of her tips for saving democracy is: “If you have social media and a smartphone, tell a story and let it spread like wildfire.”
The e-version of the “Digital Kindness Journal” is now available for people who want the prompts and the practice, but prefer to annotate digitally or to use their own notebook! Thank you to those of you who asked for the option.
A few years ago, I co-created and co-presented Vulnerable Creatures, a limited series true crime podcast about an autistic young man accused of animal cruelty. After listening to the podcast, a veterinarian reached out to us to share their experience with the criminal justice system. The eye-opening bonus episode (and the whole series) is available wherever you download or stream podcasts.
