Social Media: Apathy to Engagement

For quite sometime, I kept judging social media and what I perceived as entirely negative – pure evil? – even taking myself off the medium. Then, I realized this is where engagement is happening and you cannot start conversing with people if you are not even where people are. This age-old adage is a good reminder: start where the people are.

So, just a few months ago, that’s what I did. At first, testing the waters. What has it become, what is happening, what are people doing? Stalking, lurking, viewing, watching, listening, reading…and the “aha” moment came. People are actually changing lives through social media. Yes, trolls exist, and you invite a lot of negative things through your post, tweet, IG, pin, video, blog and what-have-yous but then, are we going to let dark forces win? So, that’s when I chose – I would rather engage and bring more light and love than avoid what may be a good opportunity to inspire, teach and reach out to people.

In the few months I have began this personal campaign, I have received affirmations through some people who got what I was doing, who understood what I was going for. On my birthday, a friend – more of an acquaintance – told me that she was affected by one post (related to trash/plastic and waste management) that she went ahead and changed one thing in her life to be part of the solution.

Apathy? It is a great teacher. But like all lessons – in school and in life – we eventually leave the teacher and take the learnings forward to grow and expand ourselves then share the lessons with others.

To generations who still fear social media, stop and let us take our hope-filled, positive, loving, compassionate selves to engage others and create a better community, country and world!