Oh, Internet!

Hello peoples! 

This week I have been pondering slightly more serious subjects and I have been thinking a lot about social media. 

In a news week that included the re-accusation of Woody Allen, the untimely death of Phillip Seymour Hoffman and the 48th Super Bowl, the world of social media was alight. But not everything being said was necessarily agreeable. 

And it got me thinking. 

In social media, we have in our hands the ability to craft a world for ourselves. We can pick and choose the news and opinions we are faced with on a daily basis and completely alter our perspective of the world around us. 

This occurred to me as I was in the process of unfollowing someone on Twitter because they had expressed an opinion I disagreed with. And I thought, what kind of world do I want to see? I want a world in which paedophiles are condemned, death is greeted with only sorrow and respect and I get to see Payton Manning make this face. But that is not the world we live in (apart from Payton Manning's face, fortunately that is here to stay!). 

Obviously, I want a world where bad things never happen. But is shutting the bad things, or people's bad reactions to bad things, out unhealthy? How can we ever generate discussion if we "unfollow" all opinions that differ from our own? How can we form well educated opinions or make intelligent arguments of our own? Does that make us closed-minded and stubborn or does living in our own world just make us a little happier? 

While I support that others have the right to express themselves online, I also have the right not to listen. And with the impersonal face of a smartphone screen, expressing ourselves negatively has never been easier. So as we are left to wade through the negativity, the trolls and the plain hateful, how do we know what to shut out and what to respect? To be honest, I simply don't enjoy spending my (virtual) time with people who routinely say things that anger me. So, I often choose the unfollow button. And I just hope that I can tell the difference between protecting myself (and this lovely bubble I live in) and stubbornly closing myself off from other opinions. 

How do you tackle social media? The good news is that the comments are now working so you can let me know!

Sorry for the slightly heavier post! 

Thanks for reading, I love you all! 

Aims xx

Thank you millions to Tim for taking and editing the photo! He's a total genius.