The Damage of Social Media
This is nothing that has not been said before, and does not illuminate anything about &quot;the damage of social media.&quot; Yes, lack of real-world speech consequences allows people who lack empathy to amplify their voice. Yes, kids spend a lot of time on the Internet.<p>But this article lacks anything for us to do about it. The subset of &quot;travelfordifference.com&quot; readers probably has little overlap with the people who post in &#x2F;b&#x2F;.<p>This article lacks focus, lacks a clear audience, and lacks a clear path to action.<p>As well, there are some misconceptions in this article.<p>&gt;You do have the right to say what you please and your opinion certainly is valid.<p>You don&#x27;t always have the right to say what you please and just because you do say it doesn&#x27;t make your opinion &#x27;valid&#x27;. There are plenty of invalid &quot;opinions.&quot;<p>&gt;But there is a time and place for everything, and upsetting someone through your words is not achieving a thing.<p>There is not a time and place for everything. For example, there is no time and no place for slander. And upsetting someone validates the speaker&#x27;s ability to affect another person -- thus, the &#x27;upsetter&#x27; is accomplishing their goal.<p>&gt;If someone is demonizing you, attacking you or upsetting you.. they are not worth your time, your emotions or your words. Your life is better than theirs. Be the bigger person and show social media how it should be done.<p>Just because someone is attacking you verbally does not mean your life is better than theirs. In fact, if you are severely, adversely affected by online hate-speech, your life is not better than theirs, and you need to change that. &quot;Being the bigger person&quot; does nothing. Social media very, very rarely rewards calm discourse on its own.