Shining A Light On - Social Media

You are scrolling, Your partner's scrolling, your kids are scrolling, your friends are scrolling, and everyone is scrolling!

Social Media is an essential fabric of our society but do you ever think about how you get fed content and how you can control it?

A few weeks ago, I sat with my niece. She wasn't in the best place as she recently broke up with her boyfriend, but she died, her hair purple, and we got a Starbucks coffee, so things were looking up. We were chatting, and for some reason, we got onto social media and the topic of gender wars on social media. I didn't know what she was on about, so the phone came out, and she started showing me video after video of it and my god, it's a war, all right.

The whole thing stayed with me, and I started thinking about it then I started making the connections; my niece wasn't happy in her relationship, and the social media algorithm doesn't have emotions; it doesn't think about what would be good for you mentally it just feeds you more cake when it learns you like cake.

Let me explain.

You have a bad day, and you're scrolling on social media. It's?just a typical Tuesday, and a video or image pops up that connects to your feelings. You could like it, share it or even watch it, but you have given the algorithm some data.

You're then fed another 3,4, or 5 videos on the same subject, and you watch 2 of them, and then you're sent 8/9/10 of them. You're constantly giving data to this non-emotional algorithm, whether you are listening to someone argue that tomatoes?are oppressed?as their accurate classification is that of a fruit or watching someone drop 15 stone, thinking I could never do that.?

Our subconscious?and emotional self controls what pops up on our social media, and it can keep us pinned in negativity unless we take time to decide what we want to put into the meter.?

We are talking about shining light on the dark, and one change I recommend anyone makes is to let social media feed you content search for the media you want and make an active effort to find creators that match your hopes and dreams and make a conscious effort to engage with their content.?

Find out what your family and kids want and work with them to find content that matches their aspirations, not just their worries. Remember, social media algorithms have no emotions.

If there is one thing I recommend is making an active decision to search out the positive?emotion on your favourite social media platform and engage with that content.

You can't?get away from social media, but you can make a positive change to improve?it.

While my neices hair is still purple, she has made an active decision to remove gender wars from her social media feed.