Social smarts – how to live with social media

LIFE ONLINE Social media is a huge part of modern life, for good and, too often, for bad.

We have just finished an engaging, informative and comprehensive four-week feature series on social media in The Mayo News. Entitled ‘Our Social Media Dilemma – Living With Social Media in 2020’, the series sought to explore the pros and cons of social media, and offer some guidance on best practice.
There is no doubt that social media is a huge part of modern life. For good, and, too often, for bad. The aim of our series was never to decry the advent of social media platforms. For all the problems they present, there is no doubt that social media can be, and often is, a force for good. The key is learning to manage and control the problematic parts.
We learned from young adults like David Hughes and Chloe Moyles about the ways in which young people can suffer via social media.
Chloe was a victim of online bullying, and while those who bullied her have much to learn, Chloe learned from the experience too. She decided to limit who could view her social media pages by tightening her privacy controls.
David was not so much a victim of bullying online but suffered from a feeling of inadequacy when comparing himself to others social media, particularly on Instagram. Over time he learned to be much happier in himself and after deleting the app for a couple of years, he realised that picture perfect people on Instagram were often far from real by the time filters and photoshopping had concluded.
Listening to both bravely tell their stories so that others might learn from them, it was clear more can be done to educate young people on how to safely navigate social media.
It’s not just important to tell people like Chloe and David how to control their interaction so they are not attacked or left feeling inadequate online. It is equally as important to hammer home the message to all about responsible behaviour online.
The abuse and anger directed at so many people nowadays online is staggering. It seems many users are incapable of criticising someone or something without resorting to abuse.
As journalists, we are very familiar with the defamation laws, and it is staggering to see how many defamatory comments are thrown about with abandon on platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
Several legal cases have been taken in relation to such comments – just last week an Irish teen was in court for sending a stream of racist abuse to footballer Ian Wright on Instagram – but clearly not enough to slow down the vitriol.
The platforms themselves are hugely culpable, with very slow and tedious methods of redress for inflammatory and abusive comments published on their platforms. That’s not to mention their willingness to allow anonymous accounts with no accountability troll and abuse people.
We like the suggestion from Clióna Conway of the Mindspace Mayo Youth Panel that getting an account on social media platforms should be like using the Revolut app – that you need to confirm your name and address by producing either a driving licence or passport.
We won’t hold our breath that Facebook, Twitter et al will act fast in this regard though.
They need to be much more proactive if this issue is going to go away but there is a huge amount of work to be done by society to stamp out this behaviour too.

Speaking truth to power
The result at the minute is fewer and fewer people are willing to go into politics because of the abuse they might receive. More and more people are falling victim to online bullies.
Lisa Chambers spoke about this in an interview at the outset of the series with Anton McNulty. Twitter can be a horrible place, she said. It certainly can.
It can be a wonderful tool for accessing information and informed opinions too though.
Facebook can be brilliant for connecting with friends, particularly in a year when face to face contacts are so limited. Social media allows everyone to be able to express their view and ask questions. With rights come responsibilities.  
We often focus on the aggressive behaviour this freedom facilitates but for every online bully, there are many more people who have measured and insightful opinions and, when used properly, social media can provide a very necessary level of accountability for authorities, institutions and governments.
“Social media platforms can be a power for good where they give voice to many people who would be otherwise unheard. They can speak truth to power and challenge the status quo,” TD Rose Conway-Walsh told us.
However, she added the same platforms can be ‘dangerous’ in allowing the spread of false, untested information and that more legislation is needed to hold social media platforms accountable for ‘hate crimes and bullying’ on their platforms.

Learning as we go
As educator Marie O’Sullivan of Westport-based Anokha Learning pointed out, social media can be most challenging for teenagers, who do not yet have the experience and maturity to ward off the negative aspects of online interaction.  
People like Niall Dunne in the Mayo Mental Health Association and Peadar Gardiner from Mindspace Mayo work with over 10,000 teenagers in secondary schools in Mayo every year. They stress the need to control the time spent on social media.
As the Mindspace Mayo Youth Panel told us, many parents go onto Facebook so they might be able to keep an eye on their kids’ use of it. The trouble is they may be completely clueless then about other platforms like Instagram, Snapchat or TikTok.
There’s no doubt that everyone is learning as they go with social media. We hope our series helped to shed some light on some of the challenges of the various platforms whilst also highlighting the good they can do and sharing some advice on staying safe online.
It is doubtlessly an issue to which we will return, as social media is here to stay, whether we like it or not. If we could all use it responsibly in terms of time spent on social platforms and our behaviour while there, it could be a real benefit to us all.