People find it easier to be mean and aggressive on social media because they can create entirely different identities that don’t lead back to them. That gives them the freedom to be as aggressive and mean as they could ever want to be. That is why we should be positive on social media as a good deed.
Social Behavior
Learning how to be positive on social media is easier than you may think and can make a bigger difference for others than you may realize. We deal with other people daily. But most of us are polite and practice manners regularly. We say thank you and please, we even let others go first sometimes.
Unfortunately, all that changes when you take the personal out of the equation. Take traffic for example, many people lose their manners when they get behind a wheel. We all know what that means, cutting people off, speeding, and forcing our way into the lane we want. That same anonymity translates to social media.
Anonymous Negativity
Social media can be dangerous because no one seems to want to be positive on social media. There is a power that comes with anonymity. We feel like we won’t get the consequences that come with being negative. One of the most common things we come across online is people laughing at our comments or posts.
Now imagine you’re standing in line at the store, and someone says something you disagree with on the phone or to the cashier. Would you laugh out loud? Most likely not because you don’t know what that person might do in response.
Online, the worst they can do is reply to your comment and you could ignore it or respond and start an argument without getting physically hurt.
Be Positive on Social Media
There is a quote that encapsulates this theory very well. “I shall pass this way but once; any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.”
The idea is simple, you may not run across this person again, this post again, this comment again, so why not leave it with positivity instead of negativity? We often only think about ourselves and not the person on the other side of the social media post.
We don’t think about what our words may do to them because we feel that our differing opinion is much more important than that human life. But your opinion is not more important than life. In fact, your negativity could end up being the final straw for someone.
If you knew that your single negative comment was the driving force for someone to self-harm or even worse, would you still do it?
How to Be Kind on Social Media
There are a few things you can do to be positive on social media. The first thing is to just ignore any differing opinion, scroll past posts you find to be against what you believe, and even scroll past negative posts. Another option would be to fight negativity with kindness.
You can reply or comment on negative posts with kindness and understanding. If you really feel the need to argue a point, then do so with grace. You can say things like, “I see what you are saying, that makes sense but what if you look at it this way…”
The goal would be to make sure that you are not just reading the comment waiting to type your response and that you understand what they are saying but maybe they can look at things differently. Lastly, you can simply act as if you are talking to this person in line at the store.
We normally think about what we are going to say before we say it, do the same here. Those are just a few ways to be positive on social media.
