The cesspi­ti­sa­tion of so­cial me­dia. “I was lost in the cesspit of so­cial me­dia”, read the head­line of an ar­ti­cle in a promi­nent Eng­lish dai­ly news­pa­per.

The head­line caught my at­ten­tion—pos­si­bly be­cause I didn’t ex­pect to read such a head­line or the word cesspit —no mat­ter the con­text- in a renowned Eng­lish dai­ly.

Even though the writer of the ar­ti­cle fo­cused on so­cial me­dia, it’s tempt­ing to re­place the words so­cial me­dia and add in many of the per­ceived ills, and is­sues fac­ing the world to­day. I was lost in the cesspit of cor­rup­tion, mis­man­age­ment, wars, high crime, racism, sex­ism etc, etc.

In so many dif­fer­ent ways we are all lost in the cesspit of some­thing not just so­cial me­dia. The cesspi­ti­sa­tion of hu­man en­deav­our oc­ca­sioned by con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries. Tik­Tok, Sig­nal, and Club­house are now es­tab­lished so­cial net­works like Face­book, YouTube, X, and In­sta­gram.

Ac­cord­ing to In­vesto­pe­dia, so­cial me­dia plat­forms al­low peo­ple to ac­cess in­for­ma­tion in re­al time, to con­nect with oth­ers, and to find com­mu­ni­ties. At its best, it makes the world more in­ter­con­nect­ed. On the oth­er hand, so­cial me­dia is al­so very good at spread­ing dis­in­for­ma­tion, cre­at­ing po­lar­i­sa­tion, and even caus­ing harm­ful psy­cho­log­i­cal ef­fects.

It’s rather harsh to de­scribe so­cial me­dia as a cesspit. But such is the ex­tent of the feel­ings of anger and re­sent­ment many per­sons have about so­cial me­dia. It’s the same strong feel­ings peo­ple have about bad gov­er­nance, cor­rup­tion, and malfea­sance in sport. And there will be no hes­i­ta­tion too for the anger, re­sent­ment and frus­tra­tion to be ar­tic­u­lat­ed by say­ing it’s a cesspit.

There are pros and cons in every­thing. Us­ing so­cial me­dia can help in par­tic­u­lar with re­spect to mar­ket­ing. Hav­ing a mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy built around so­cial me­dia can be very ef­fec­tive and ef­fi­cient and will help nav­i­gate the “cesspit of so­cial me­dia”.

So­cial me­dia isn’t any­thing to be afraid of even if it’s a “cesspit”.

Con­grat­u­la­tions are ex­tend­ed to all those who would have re­ceived awards at re­cent an­nu­al awards events—the TTOC (T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee) and NAAATT (Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ics Ad­min­is­tra­tions of T&T). These two events along with the First Cit­i­zens Awards are al­ways keen­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed. Con­grat­u­la­tions to all the de­serv­ing re­cip­i­ents.

With the Christ­mas sea­son com­ing to an end, the twin-is­land re­pub­lic is gear­ing up for the Car­ni­val sea­son. In ad­di­tion to Car­ni­val, there are sev­er­al ma­jor sport events on the sched­ule. I cer­tain­ly hope the Carif­ta Games will get all the sup­port it needs.

While to­day’s col­umn be­gan with the top­ic of the cesspi­ti­sa­tion of so­cial me­dia, I didn’t want to pen the first “Things That Mat­ter” col­umn for 2025 on a neg­a­tive and pes­simistic note.

It’s a brand new year and it’s im­por­tant to be­gin it on a bright and pros­per­ous note full of ex­pec­ta­tion that the year will be filled with good news.

There is a say­ing: “What you fo­cus on you will get”. At least for this first week in 2025 it’s all good.

On a per­son­al lev­el, it’s go­ing to be an in­ter­est­ing year for more rea­sons than maybe ob­vi­ous. I have been asked to give se­ri­ous thought to ac­cept­ing dif­fer­ent chal­lenges and to be part of the so­lu­tion to per­ceived prob­lems. In so far as I be­lieve I can make a pos­i­tive dif­fer­ence, I will give deep and thought­ful con­sid­er­a­tion. Al­ways mind­ful that in mak­ing de­ci­sions ei­ther way, be it no or yes. Not every­one will be hap­py but at the end of the day, de­ci­sions must be made based on your mo­tives and what you be­lieve at a point in time is the right de­ci­sion to make.