This is a world of instant opinion, where fury breaks out immediately and excoriation is meted out in seconds. Social media demands that everybody must have a reaction, and hang the consequences. But does it make for a better world?
Once we were encouraged to think carefully before speaking out. Now technology enables us to announce our views on anything, without any thought at all.
We are encouraged to join in, and it can be compelling. Once it was amusing to watch two people in a cafe or restaurant silently absorbed in their phones rather than enjoying each other’s company. Now it is de rigeur.
Instant opinion is not necessarily good opinion. Too often we make binary, abrupt responses. The cacophony of social media becomes dominated by the most strident aggressive voices. People are swept up in the rage of the moment.
The new Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament, Ken Macintosh, intends to allow MSPs to use social media during proceedings. Surely it is time to stop and think about this.
Today in Scotland a significant number of police officers seem to be engaged in monitoring what people say on Facebook and Twitter, or post on Instagram. All it takes is a – sometimes vexatious – complaint from a member of the public and they are duty bound to investigate. And, boy, can people get offended.
Some “offenders” are people who thrive on controversy, or who say outrageous things in order to promote themselves. I won’t name them as that would serve their purpose.
Others do it to attract public fury – including teenagers who have posted something outrageous, late at night and possibly under the influence. Sometimes they even end up in court.
How did we get to this situation, where MPs issue apologies for late night remarks on Twitter, or hitherto respectable people engage in furious arguments about things that really won’t have changed in the cold light of the next day?
Perhaps the worst examples are football and politics. Here, social media only helps society’s wounds to fester. Initially after the Scottish Cup Final, no Hibernian supporter could possibly concede that invading a pitch or threatening players might have been unwise, even idiotic. No Rangers fan could say that responding with violence was plain wrong.
Social media allows no room for the many shades of grey that inhabit real life. Instead we get extremes of opinion, or the childish “whatabout-ery” of the one-eyed football fan or political obsessive.
In 2011 the SNP introduced offensive behaviour at football legislation which even its then Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill (now a Herald columnist) concedes could do with shake up. Opponents want to repeal the law. The nature of the relationship between Labour and SNP means that each sees only one available option – defend or attack. No room for sensible analysis of whether the Act is doing any good, might be improved or should indeed be killed.
Instead we are subjected to binary debates inside and outside parliament which promote bad feeling, spread untruths and even hatred.
Somehow I can’t see our MSPs’ contributions from the chamber representing any improvement to the quality of debate. Our relentless race towards instant outrage and blind opinion continues apace.
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