by Caroline Ravello
How to maintain good wellbeing while using social media will always be a subject area to which we return, since social media is now an integral aspect of our daily communication. We each use social media differently: some for daily humour, some as a political platform for expressing views and debating issues, and still some for news or just engaging people.
Social media has created communities for us without boundaries and in so doing, has created borderless communities in which each of us can participate. Many avoid this kind of community activity, some use it sparingly and others, like me, use it as a conversational space for various discourses.
Whatever the use, we each have the freedom to be content creators in a global community. Some people use the space to express deep personal issues while others avoid personal information as far as possible. And still, there are people who have found a way here to express themselves and their pain or struggles, easier than doing it intimately or in person. On many occasions, I have used social media to express deep struggles. I have chronicled depressive states and done so both as a means of expressing myself and opening myself to support. Mostly, I use those moments to advocate, to give someone else the hope of realising they are not alone, or to help someone feel confident to open up and express their own feelings. Social media expanded my advocacy exponentially and has allowed me to support more people than I ever could using the traditional ways of peer counselling, group meetings and in-person talk forums.
Social media presents as good or the evil of the traditional communities to which we belong. There are many who have found nefarious ways to use the platforms available. One area that intrigues me is the mushrooming of romance platforms; it is also one that I find so dangerous looking at the heart-breaking stories of people being scammed, even locally, by romance scammers from all over the world. Researchers have been exploring many angles of social media’s impact on people. Effects studies have looked at many areas covering the type of influences social media has on traditional spaces, living and communities.
On negative effects, the issue of suicide is a subject that continues to be explored from many angles as well, with people having even used platforms for streaming self-harm. It remains concerning too, that sections of our populations view social media as a real-world, real-life experience and this has worked to influence many drastic negative changes, including body image issues and some precipitating suicidal ideation among younger people.
It is the issue of suicide though, and how people view such an incident in terms of either “making news” among their friends or reporting current issues, that created the most bother personally in the past weeks.
It used to be where traditional media and traditional content producers were trained to the sensitivity of reporting this public health issue. Even today, as communities change, advocacy improves and as knowledge increases, more and more learnings are available from the research as to how traditional media reports on sensitive issues such as suicide, implementing best practices as they become accepted globally.
But with every person having at least one device and everyone being a content creator, moderating how we speak or report suicide is virtually impossible. It used to be a long time ago that we could have depended on people’s sense of compassion, levels of dignity, and even respect for life to have a person’s death in whichever manner treated with dignity.
Social media seemed to have erased this. And even as I type this, I recall a local newspaper once carrying an image of a decapitated man’s head and I always in my mind count that as a turning point in our lives regarding respect for life. Social media seems an extension of that moment in our history when it comes to lacking sensitivity. Unwittingly opening a video recently which appeared to be a person involved in the act of suicide has left me with a deep sense of grief and loss for what has happened to us as a people with open access to platforms that display our humanity or lack thereof.
In traditional media, we continue to learn and regulate how reporters position issues like suicide trying to use evidence–base information to apply the best principles. But just what do we do to help every person with a device to feel a sense of responsibility in what they choose to post, especially when it is about the life and dignity of another human being? I remain deeply affected and concerned. Warmest regards.