Day: September 14, 2015

I think the internet should come with an instruction manual.

Or at the very least guidelines.

Really.

Have you seen some of the stuff on here?

Maybe start slow, something simple,

like…

• Don’t feed the trolls or don’t tweet when angry, sad, lonely…drunk, or ill-informed, without verification. For some, maybe just don’t tweet at all. This also applies to posting on Facebook, texting, commenting, etc.

• If someone unfriends you, relax, then look up the definition of friend and if someone doesn’t agree with your opinion that doesn’t oblige you to start a war. Viva la difference.

• Watch out for those snap judgements, don’t mistake conversation for honest conversation, and know the difference between flirty and creepy (don’t stand so close to me, even on the internet).

I sometimes wonder what the world is going to look like after a few more years ‘high’ on social media?
Electoral candidates are constantly apologizing and dropping out of politics for tweets, texts, pictures (the better question might be why those pictures were taken at all)…even if it was years ago. That reminds me, I should check my Twitter feed.

Social media has given us the freedom to express ourselves, but like anything else, social media brings out the best in some people, the worst in others. Or perhaps this level of wow-super-interesting-but-not-necessarily-in-a-good-way was always there, the internet has just made certain views, er, more available.

Perhaps some people always thought they were:

• Being mind-controlled by subterranean lizard people (gee, I hate when that happens).

• Celebrities who sometimes seem like subterranean lizard people, just not as cool.

• Aliens, androids, and other ‘a’ words.

• Traveling through time and space, wait, wasn’t that on Doctor Who (don’t blink and take me with you).

  

• Immortal (I’m sure that worked great, right up until the moment they died).

• Fairies, merpeople, wizards, witches, vampires, zombies, werewolves, Donald Trump (sorry, just randomly listing supernatural creatures).

  

• Married to video game characters (hopefully not Sonic the Hedgehog, too, umm, quick).

• Obsessed by food and cats and cats with food.

  

• Inventors of things they didn’t invent because in some cases they weren’t even born yet or not that bright.

• Being used in secret government experiments (hey, I watched X-Files too).

  Look what the internet has done with this latest refugee crisis. I think we’re all migrants. At birth, we move from our mothers. We wander…first to our knees to crawl, then drift to an upright position to walk. We travel, even a few feet to play. We rove to school. We wander into relationships, friendships. We transition to jobs. Sometimes roam the world. Humans are nomadic; we take journeys through stories, books, movies, TV programs, and now, the internet, even if we never leave our home. One way or another, we like to move it, move it, we like to move it, move it…

Just like one way or another we’ve all sought refuge, if only in a book, a song, on the shoulder of a friend, in the arms of lover, in a movie, TV program, a story, a walk, a drive, in sleep, cookies, alcohol, hope, and so much more? When a day has kicked your butt up and down the street, who doesn’t want sanctuary?

We could spend forever judging and bickering over ‘the right thing’, frankly, I admit, I’m not always sure what is the right thing, but clearly, helping in some way can’t be the wrong thing, right?

So, is the internet the last nail in our cultural coffin, or just another way for humans to connect? For me, it’s a great place to make memes…and friends. What about you?