Unplug

      Thoreau said, “we don’t ride on the railroad, it rides on us.”

      And he never experienced the internet.

      Social media weighs more heavily on us than previous generations of innovations.

     We become locked into the routine of checking. Checking email, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, whatever. Scrolling a deleting until, eventually, we find something worth reading.

     Of course there is value in communication through social media. Business emails, Twitter posts that are real news and all that. But it is so easy to become trapped by the irrelevant.

    Advertising used to be avoidable. Now it pops up on emails and newsfeeds like dandelions in the spring. Friends used to be people we actually talked to. Now they are people we hardly remember posting photos of their grandchildren and dogs.

      I’m as guilty as anyone of enjoying reconnecting with high school and college friends and keeping up with people who have moved across the country. But, I limit my time on social media. I have always had a feeling it was more than a time suck.

   Now, more intelligent columnists than I have come to the conclusion that too much exposure to social media causes our brains to operate more inefficiently.  Of course it does. For one thing, we are sitting, staring at a screen rather than moving around and keeping our blood circulating.  For another, we are spending time glancing at paragraphs of drivel masquerading as news. Especially after the recent election, many of us are becoming ridiculously enraged at the collective idiocy of those who believe everything they read on Facebook. Or Stalkbook, as the barista at my local coffee shop calls it.

     It’s only natural to use the anonymity of the internet to create an alternate identity. It’s sort of like the boy in A Thousand Clowns who chose various names for himself. I remember he had his library card as Raphael Sabatini. Even under our own names, it is tempting to be that little boy, trying out different personas.

    While that in and of itself isn’t damaging, it isn’t terribly productive.

     I know a number of people who are taking a post-election break from social media. That’s a good thing, but it shouldn’t take a depressing disaster make you realize you have better things to do.

     I also know some people who “unfriended” everyone on their friend’s list who voted for “the other candidate.” That indicates politics is everything. It’s not. It’s possible to still care about someone you don’t always agree with. Trust me on this one.

     And trust me, you’ll be better off with a little less computer time.

Safety -- the Downside

     One of the Facebook posts that actually makes sense to me, poised amid the weeds of political lunacy, points out that at one time 18-year-olds were storming the beaches of Normandy (or the jungles of Khe San), not searching for a "safe space" because the results of the election bothered them.

     We have done a tragic disservice to our children if they need to hide from reality.

      Sure, there are certain groups justifiably frightened by the rhetoric of the election season and the actions of a number of Trump supporters. But there is way too much cowering going on.

     And on the other end, too much property damage. Protests are fine, looting and violence are never the right reactions.

     The point is there are too many young people in this world who aren't taught to be resillient.

     Helicopter mothers. Trophies for participation. Even, I've been told, teachers instructed not to tell their students they are wrong.

     What an injustice to young people, not teaching them to handle problems, even the smallest of problems.

     Someone once asked me what's the most important thing I taught my kids. I said "to get back up on the horse."

     I'm not the best mother in the world, I'm sure. I know I made lots of mistakes. But I taught my kids to handle defeat. 

     Sure, nobody wants bad things to happen to their kids. But stuff does happen. We have to teach them to pick themselves up and brush themselves off. They have to learn that mommy won't always be standing behind them.

     People somehow got the idea that college tuition is an investment allowing them to control what happens. No, you don't have a right to sit in on advising sessions. Your college student is an adult and needs to act like one. I have a feeling they will learn quickly when they have to. We all did.

     I don't believe this generation has less ability to learn than we did. I don't believe they are less resilient than we were. They just need the chance to prove themselves.  

Outdated Terminology

     I am pretty tired of the term "media elite."

     It pigeonholes everyone involved in newsgathering. As if the media from the NYTimes to your hyperlocal digital website run by an exhausted ex-newspaperman was a monolith.

     We don't feel terribly elite much of the time. Like when we are living on stale coffee and melted candy bars on a midnight deadline. Or when the high school fieldhouse is on fire and there's no place to get a picture that isn't in the line of fire from a fire hose.
   
     People see the anchors of national news with their bespoke suits and hundred dollar haircuts. They don't see the rookie reporter living on raman noodles in an apartment shared with three other reporters and shopping at the Methodist Thrift Shop. 

     Of course some people can see the difference.  Those we cover closely know the difference between real reporters and superstar anchors and the difference between them both and the dilettantes who call themselves journalists because they can type. The officials who have seen us weekly for years may learn to finesse our questions, but, if they do their job well, they know when we do ours professionally. Most people who just read the news and don't make the news never think about what we do or how hard we work to do it.

    This dreadful, interminable election season has brought that into focus.  I see people whom I always assumed were pretty smart commenting on Facebook about things they obviously read that were written by someone who did absolutely no research and relied on no primary sources. I'm not just talking about people on the right. Some of my liberal friends also remind me of the Red Queen who could often believe two impossible things before breakfast. 

     The legacy newspapers and their digital presences, NPR and the old-line television news shows do our research, reach out to sources and work really hard for the truth. Fox (Faux) News and the loudmouths of AM radio do not. Don't put us all in the same wheelbarrow. And, for Cronkite's sake, don't believe ANYTHING you read on social media. It was probably posted by a 17-year-old in Macedonia with a wicked sense of humor and a fondness for marijuana brownies.
 


   
 

How Exactly Did It Come to This?

     I get people having different, even conflicting, political opinions.

     Some people seem to be motivated totally by idealology. Small government is best, they say, ignoring, or forgetting, that times change and as the world becomes more complex, people become less able to look out for themselves. If you grow your own food, you know what's in it. If corporate, industrial farms grow it, you need the USDA and the FDA. But, they have very right to believe they  don't need government regulation. They also have every right to get salmonella.

     Other people have this urban idea that guns equal crime. They have the right to believe that. They also have the right to be bitten by a rabid raccoon because they didn't have a gun to shoot it.

     But, today, it doesn't seem to be about ideology. I'm not sure what it is about.

     Fear? Sure, I get people don't like change. Nobody liked the New Coke. But change comes. And, to be in America and dislike the change that comes from immigrants is pretty ridiculous. I mean, this isn't like the immigration that destroyed the Indian Nations. If you're Navajo and pissed off, I get it. But, I don't think a bunch of Syrians is gonna drive out to the plains and wipe out buffalo herds. They may open some decent Middle Eastern restaurants in Brooklyn . . .

     Then, fear turns to anger. And anger is a lousy reason to cast a vote.

     An election season with more venom than facts helps no one.  There has been precious little actual discussion during the presidential campaign. I, for one would like to hear something substantial between now and next Tuesday. Something. Anything.