If you were to go by what it looks like online, you would think the world is a very hateful place.
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Social media tends to silo us into echo chambers of extreme and radicalized ideologies. As I reflect over the last couple of years, however, I realize the third and final lesson I have learned and hope we all remember is that the world is much friendlier than the internet would have us believe.
People are not as hate-filled as it seems when you look at that debate on Twitter or Facebook. I’m not saying there aren’t hate-filled people. Neither am I saying that there are not folks out there with nefarious motives–trolls and such. I’m simply saying that most of the world is friendlier than the internet portrays.
Most people want others to them, and that desire for others to like them leads them to put on a smile or have a friendly conversation.
I have lived in communities where Democrats and Republicans got along. Not everyone is polarized. Not everyone wants to destroy the other.
Quite the opposite.
Most people are friendly. They’re generous. They’re kind.
Yet, when we spend a significant portion of our day online–and when online people tend to be aggressive, say things they wouldn’t say to your face, say things in all caps or language that sounds a whole lot stronger than what their tone may have presented–we begin to develop this idea that people are just plain angry.
And to be true, there are a lot of angry people in our world today.
However, part of the reason there are so many angry people is that we have centered the internet instead of real-life interactions.
When you engage the world in real life, you discover that the majority of people are a lot friendlier then when you primarily engage the world online. I hope we remember that. Furthermore, I hope we press in towards each other in real life and experience what each other is actually like in person so that we can have better conversations online instead of allowing our interactions online to keep us from having conversations in real life.
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