When the stream is raging
Surviving social media in chaotic times
“Should I ford the river or caulk and float?”
During childhood, my brother and I faced this question almost daily while playing the The Oregon Trail game on our Apple IIe. On a camping trip decades later, as I prepared to drive over a river along the actual Oregon Trail in my car (not a covered wagon) in real life (not in an 8-bit graphic computer game), I had to call him. I had to virtually share that moment with the one person I knew would get it.
“How high and fast is the river?” my brother asked without skipping a beat. It has been nearly 40 years, but he knew exactly what I was talking about. “If it’s the Snake River you have to pay the guide,” he added. “That’s the only way to get across it.”
In the game, every time you reach a river, you face the same choices.
ford the river by driving your oxen and wagon across it, which only works if the stream is low and slow
caulk the wagon and float it across the river like a boat, which is always risky because the wagon can capsize, you can lose your stuff, and at least one of your party usually ends up drowning
wait to see if conditions improve
When we played the game, we only ever considered the first two options. We were too impatient to wait to see if conditions improved.
But when facing a raging stream of social media content (and not an 8-bit computer game river), waiting is always a good option.
Taking the time we need to reflect on what’s happening, what we’re seeing from others in digital spaces, and how we’re feeling allows us to approach social media in ways that are healthy and meaningful for us.
While it’s true that social media spaces are designed to nudge us into reacting quickly and frequently, as I wrote in Digital Grace: Pouring Benevolence into an Outraged World:
“The ability to gauge our feelings and temper our physiological responses to ideas, personalities, 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 don’t have to rush to comment on or participate in swiftly moving conversations. We can wait to see if the conditions improve. Something that felt extremely urgent at first sight may not matter much anymore after a period of time passes or after other voices weigh in. Or we may think and feel differently after mulling a post over for a while.
We don’t have to go along with the flow, or do what anyone else is telling us to do. We can wait until we feel like it’s the right decision for us to enter the current.
In Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, technologist Clay Shirkey describes navigating social tools as similar to maneuvering a kayak. We can steer, but we can’t stop or reverse or even radically change the direction we’re moving in. “Our principal challenge,” he says, “is not to decide where we want to go but rather to stay upright as we go there.”
Some other strategies for staying upright in a raging social media stream …
Set our own terms of engagement. Decide which conversations we want to have on social media and which ones we’d rather avoid.
Remind ourselves that outrage-inducing content makes its way to our feed because of the engagement-maximizing algorithm and not because it is deeply-reasoned, meticulously-researched, quality content. Interacting with it in any way — even to refute it or share it as an example of faulty thinking or bad digital behavior — only feeds the engagement-maximizing beast.
Sever digital ties with people or accounts that regularly serve up outrageous, stress-inducing content.
When we get caught in the current (it happens to all of us) and post something we regret, don’t be afraid to delete it. If a post already has a lot of engagement, consider a deletion follow-up (something like, “I’ve decided a previous post of mine didn’t accurately communicate my thoughts, so I deleted it.”) If an apology is merited, make it. The more we normalize transparency and humility in digital spaces, the better these spaces become.
Step away from social media for enough time to recharge and refresh.
The algorithms are designed to deliver a whirlwind of conflict, and we’re going to find ourselves swept into it — sometimes drowning in echo chambers or retreating from the stream altogether. What matters most is that we, more often than not, demonstrate care for our fellow digital sojourners and strive to make online spaces better for all.
When we care about each other and work together to survive (even thrive!) in chaotic times, the journey becomes a lot more pleasant, we’re more likely to all stay upright, and the better world we’re searching for becomes a lot more likely to be reached.
Digital Kindness Audiobook is Now Available!
I have 5 FREE promo codes to give away to readers of Digital Hope. If you want one, please leave a comment or message me on Substack Notes. If I get more than 5 requests, I’ll see what I can do.
This is five years in the making. I’m excited for people to hear my words in my voice! I hope y’all love it.
MISCELLANEA
My plan was for this newsletter to be about the real research on youth and social media — the pushback by technology, adolescence, and child development experts to Jonathan Haidt’s problematic The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. But then some big stuff happened on the American political scene and I felt I needed to talk about social media self-care first. One of those big things happened to involve yet another public shooting. The generation Haidt says smartphones made “anxious,” is also the generation that has been subjected to active shooter drills as a “normal” part of their entire school experience and have grown up under the shadow of ever-increasing numbers of mass shootings in every location imaginable so no place feels safe.
Digital Kindness turned 5 last month!
Even the most brilliant efforts at boosting participation often don’t achieve desired outcomes. No matter how participatory some parts of an otherwise non-participatory system might be, many people won’t bother to participate because they know they don’t have full and meaningful agency within the system. A system designed to be fully participatory, on the other hand “unleashes the agency of the citizens.” Read more in this fascinating article from New Citizens Project about “designing stuff in participatory ways” rather than “designing participatory stuff.”
Digital Kindness Journal Prompt #13
Fill in the blank: I can’t believe anyone could ever think __________________
Find at least one person on social media who thinks it. Spend a week seeing what else they post.
The Digital Kindness Journal: a year of guided reflections for compassionate social media use contains 50+ prompts and a month of reflections on your social media activity to help you mindfully use it, including identifying when you want to grow or prune digital connections.
