It’s Time For Social Media to Change the World (Again)

In the summer of 2007, after a college intern encouraged me to join Facebook, I considered questioning, “This goes to trade the whole lot. This is going to alternate the sector.”

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, other social networks, blogs, and interactive online media have impacted billions of people in the last 12 years. Social media has helped topple dictatorships and given many millions of people previously unheard of a voice. It has reunited families, reconnected vintage pals, and rekindled romances. It has created possibilities for many small business proprietors, authors, and entrepreneurs. My spouse and I are one of these people.

6 Ways Social Media is Changing the World 🌎 | Social media, Change the world, Social

But there has also been a darkish aspect to the last 12 years of social media: Cyber-bullying, terrible headlines, statistics and protection breaches, Russian interference in elections, the effect on mental fitness,–the list of harmful factors of social media, regrettably, is going on and on.

Whether you browse and see someone complaining about something small, like how uninteresting a TV display became last night, or something massive, like how poisonous our modern-day political surroundings are, it’s impossible to use social media nowadays without regular exposure to negativity.

The statistics are all startling. Forty-one percent of Generation Z social media users said that social media makes them feel unhappy, hectic, or depressed. A 2017 study found that the extra time 18-22-year-olds spent on social media keeping with the day, “the greater the affiliation with tension signs and symptoms.” Disinformation Twitter bills retain to put up more than one million tweets consistent with the day. Most young adults have heard racist or sexist hate speech on social media. Nearly 43% of teens were bullied online, and 41% of all Americans have experienced online harassment. However, we do not need the statistics to recognize how we sense while logging in and testing our feeds.

What, then, are we able to do to combat the negativity? Could all of us quit social media? No, in 2019, social media is an unavoidable part of our lives, for better or worse. We may want to place the obligation within the social media agencies’ hands, but they have not precisely demonstrated honesty recently. So, indeed, the most active issue we can do is to alternate our personal behavior. It starts offevolved with small acts of kindness, an excellent way to have a ripple impact.

Here’s one idea: #BeLikeableDay, a global motion that asks humans and companies to pledge to take one minute out of the day on February 26th to commit to an act of kindness on social media. Re-tweet a charitable purpose on Twitter, or genuinely say something satisfactory on the social network of your choice. Compliment a friend on their outfit on Instagram, share gratitude for a neighbor on Facebook, or depart unsolicited advice for a colleague on LinkedIn.

Together, one man or woman and one act of kindness at a time, we will begin to make social media an extra positive place to spend our time, first, on February 26th, after which, perhaps, in the end, each day. And here’s the coolest information: Online acts of kindness do not just alternate the world of social media for the better; they exchange you for the better.

Yes, there is technological know-how to being first-rate online! The latest take look by Yale and UCLA researchers advocates that acting with small, kind gestures diffuses pressure and improves mental fitness. In a Berkeley look, participants reported greater emotions of calmness and extended vanity after supporting others. Committing acts of kindness even lowers your blood stress: According to Dr. David R. Hamilton, author of The Five Side Effects of Kindness, acts of kindness launch the hormone oxytocin. Oxytocin causes the discharge of nitric oxide, which, in flip, reduces your blood strain.

So, in preference to complaining about all the negativity and toxicity of social media and making it even more negative, how about selecting positivity on social media, on #BeLikeableDay, and each day? You would possibly improve your temper. You might also trade the arena.

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I have been working in the field of SEO and content marketing since 2014. I have worked with over 500 clients and more than 100 websites. I started blogging in 2012 and have now made my first steps into the world of freelancing. In my spare time, I like to read, cook or listen to music.