Good relationship with social media ~Are you a “fixer”?

I am fed up with all the negative news. The media and social media are full of criticism toward each other. There are hypocritical voices from everywhere. I periodically take a break from all types of media. I feel like my brain gets overloaded with opinions coming from all directions.

I recently read an essay titled, “I’m yellow, white, and a little bit blue.” It was written by Mikako Brady. She wrote about the social issues in British society from her middle-school-aged son’s point of view. In that essay, she describes a bullying incident at her son’s school. A boy who often makes racist comments ends up getting bullied by the entire class. When that happened, she says, her son made the next comment: “People do like to punish others…” I couldn’t agree more with what this boy said.

Yes, we do like to get the upper hand and “lecture” others. It is human nature to do so as we naturally try to educate younger people once we get old. Partly, it is necessary as a human because we will extinguish if we don’t teach our offspring how to survive.

In terms of psychological perspective, nevertheless, this approach does not always work. To make matters worse, it often brings about worse situations. Why? That’s because people do not like to listen to others. We do love to lecture others but do not like to be lectured. This is not a bad thing as it is only natural. So what should we do?

Here are a few ideas you try. 1. Listen (even if you don’t want to). 2. Analyze others. 3. Find out and hold on to your ideas. 1. Listening to others is not the same as surrendering. You find it easier to listen to others knowing that it is OK to listen without agreeing with them. 2. Analyzing what people are trying to do is important. This is different from simply listening to ideas or reading contents. Analyzing is to think about what s/he is trying to do by projecting the particular idea. Is s/he trying to get accepted, be admired, or simply trying to educate others? Carefully think about others to find out what that person’s purpose is. 3. Finally, you will find your own idea and hold on to it. If you think it is challenging to do so, stay away from social media a little bit.

Going back to the episode from the book, “I’m yellow, white, and a little bit blue,” I felt that the boy’s comment summarized what was going on. The crowd was becoming the bullies. They were turning into the very thing they were against at first. This is a scary phenomenon that happens all the time. As a final note, I’d like to emphasize that you can’t “fix” the world easily. Simply sharing your ideas or punishing someone will not suffice. I wish things worked so simply, but it does not. There are often serious and complicated issues hidden behind people’s negative behaviors.