Kind thoughts for Meghan Markle
News:Entertainment News
Podcast 8 - Prince Harry urges a rethink in the use of Social Media - his Fast Company op-ed.
In this podcast we talk about our use of social media prompted by Prince Harry’s op-ed for Fast Company, the monthly American business magazine. In his article Prince Harry talks about how he feels the digital landscape is ‘unwell’.
Prince Harry proposes in his article that social media communication needs to be remodelled. Somewhat controversially, Prince Harry likens the effects of social media on our children's health to that of the damage caused by lead paint in the 1970’s.
Likewise, Harry feels that social media affects people negatively, especially young people, and he feels that steps should be taken now to change things. He fears one day society well look back and see how much damage has been done.
Harry is calling on industry leaders and people in general to transform digital communities to make them safe places.
Harry concludes his article by urging us to demand meaningful digital reform, notably by asking the companies that spend their advertising dollars on digital platforms to push for change, saying these companies have the $$ power to demand it.
I blogged about this issue in August 2019, calling my article “The Ugly Reality of Social Media”. See all my blog posts at https://www.kindthoughtsformeghanmarkle.com/
Harry and Meghan of course have firsthand experience of this issue. Anyone who used to follow Harry and Meghan’s Instagram account @sussexroyal would have seen the outright nastiness of some of the posts, often crossing the line from legitimate opinion into hate speech.
When we communicate electronically we all too often seem to forget our manners and diplomacy and in fact are quite often rude and abusive. We forget it is OK for other people to have a different opinion to us. We forget that some opinions are best kept in our heads and not said out loud.
In our electronic communications we often seem to revert to animal like behaviours, where anything goes. Why should we be allowed get away with saying things on social media that we would never dream of saying to someone face-to-face or in a room full of our colleagues and friends?
Maybe we need a computer generated reminder for our social media communications. Some of us do learn to self-moderate what we say on-line. But what about others who don’t or can’t do that? Is Harry on to something?
Show written and produced by Jeanette Songolo.
Please keep listening for future podcasts on all things Meghan, Harry, Archie and Lili and in the meantime watch out for other posts on all things Sussex on my blog at https://www.kindthoughtsformeghanmarkle.com/
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