3. THE VIRTUE OF OPINION: TOLERANCE OF DIFFERENCE AND DISSENT
After listening to so many students discuss the importance of Facebook Cleanups and not being the least bit provocative for fear of saying something with which another person (especially a person in power) might disagree, it’s difficult not to wonder whether this phenomenon is related to the uproar on campuses across the nation around diversity and intolerance, cultural sensitivity and insensitivity, and safe versus unsafe spaces. Controversies over culturally insensitive Halloween costumes (for example) have become rampant, and there is incredible tension regarding expressions of dissent from majority opinion, or one that is deemed “politically correct.” America’s campuses are meant to be spaces where intellectual dialogue and debate can flourish, places where all students can thrive and live free from the fear of discrimination. In order for students to feel safe, it is important to call out racist, sexist, and culturally insensitive activities and comments—not just in person but online, especially given what people are seeing on Yik Yak.
“Neutrality” was a frequent theme among the students I interviewed. Yet there is a difference between racist, sexist, and intolerant speech, and holding an unpopular opinion. I am certainly not advocating for “unsafe” spaces, but I see parallels between the policing of speech and the overwhelmingly common belief among college students that there is an acute “danger” or “risk,” with real consequences, to sharing an unpopular opinion on social media, so it is best not to express any opinions at all. I want to be clear: there is a difference between political speech and racism. But what we consider acceptable political speech changes so quickly that today’s innocent remark becomes tomorrow’s hate speech. Students fear that even the slightest error can—and surely will—haunt them forever (and in today’s world, it might). This fear is buffered by stories of public shaming and of ruinous posts that have ended careers, destroyed social lives, and led to death threats. Students are acutely aware of how easy it is to offend people, so the best course of action is to post only “safe” material like puppy photos and smiling, happy pictures.
Are young adults learning to become so careful in their online activities that the Facebook Cleanup is leaping from the virtual sphere into the very real space of the college campus? Are students getting so good at “cleaning up” and staying neutral that any sign of provocation from a real person in real life must be squelched, even deleted, as well?
To conform to the expectations of future employers, mentors, and other people in power seems to require the appearance of perfection, and a complete lack of opinion, too—or so young people are learning. Holding an unpopular political opinion might cost you a job. Making a poorly worded statement might do the same. Rather than talk about this, or try to have a conversation about why it might be problematic or hurtful or even offensive to a particular population, we instead mount protests and call for resignations. Dialogue with anyone whose opinions do not fall into the majority has become nearly impossible. Or at least very, very risky.
Because of social media, college students are learning to “practice” fitting in to an extreme degree. And how does one tell the difference between an unpopular opinion and racist, sexist, culturally insensitive speech? It is difficult to parse through answers to this, when all speech has become such a minefield on campus. True tolerance of diversity should not result in simply conformity to the majority’s attitude, and tolerance is a value we are supposed to be teaching on college campuses. But even beyond tolerance, I think we need to consider the possibility that opinion itself has become problematic, at least if it does not conform to perceived campus norms. We must reckon with how the professionalization of Facebook and the avoidance of posting religious and political speech is contributing to the rising fear of expression on college campuses overall.
4. THE VIRTUE OF FORGETTING: LETTING MEMORIES FADE
Not every moment needs to be recorded and documented. There are, of course, memories that everyone wants to savor, precious people in our lives whose images we want to save, friendships and loves that photos will help preserve. But the increase in taking photos and videos simply because the tools are available, portable, and ubiquitous seems to have reached a problematic tipping point. When the point of a party or an outing with friends becomes the photo itself and not the outing and time spent with friends, we should rethink our actions and intentions. When the point of our lives becomes proving what we do, we need to re-evaluate.
One of the difficulties of life is the elusiveness of the moment, of our experiences, of memory. People come and go in our lives, and this can be sad. Many of us are nostalgic and sentimental creatures, and photos and videos are wonderful tools for hanging on to the things we don’t want to forget and the people who mean the most to us. They are a gift in this way.
But there is a freedom, too, in the passing of time and the fading away of many experiences. It liberates us to move forward, to let go, to create new experiences in the present. There is a freedom in knowing that certain experiences will not follow us forever. Just because we can capture everything on video or in a photo does not mean that we should. We need to become better at discerning when and to what extent we use today’s tools for capturing not only the moment but all moments. Not documenting everything allows us to live differently and do things that we otherwise wouldn’t, since not everything we do should follow us forever. We need to learn to pick and choose between what we keep and what is better left behind.
5. THE VIRTUE OF THE NOW: LIVING IN THE MOMENT
Likewise, holding off on at least some of those selfies helps us to be present, to live in the now, and to experience the world more fully. College students are at once annoyed and exhausted by all the documentation they see among friends, peers, and family, as well as by the expectation to participate in that documentation themselves. There comes a point at which it is no longer fun to memorialize our activities and our time with friends, when the documentation begins to detract from and even destroy our time together. Just about everyone can speak of a time when they’ve been to an art museum and seen other visitors who, rather than look at the paintings and sculptures, snapped photo after photo of all the artwork, seeing it indirectly through the camera.
Collecting “proof” of every experience, every person we see, everything we do, not only takes away from those experiences, people, and activities but sets us up for another vicious cycle of doing things not necessarily because we want to or because they are fun or because they make us happy or because they mean something to us, but simply to be able to show that we did. The quality of experience is beginning to take second place to the quantity of proof that we collect. Students I interviewed and surveyed expressed tremendous resentment about this.
Learning not to take out the camera not only is a worthwhile skill but also will help everyone to attend to the world, the people, and the beauty around them, as opposed to worrying about the perfect shot, and then the next one, and the next.
6. THE VIRTUE OF PLAY: WHY GOOFING OFF IS IMPORTANT
Many people of my generation and older who are now parents bemoan the loss of unsupervised neighborhood play as we knew it—building forts in the woods, playing tag, roller-skating in the middle of the street, and running around all day until the sun went down and your mom or dad came out on the front steps to yell your name in the hopes that you might hear and wander home before dark. Today, playtime is highly scheduled and largely determined by parentally arranged play dates, and children are more accustomed to structure and scripted play that often involves a heavy dose of electronic devices.
Regardless of where and how play happens, it’s an important part of all our lives. Just because we get older doesn’t mean that our need for fun, laughter, and relaxation goes away. Even though teens and young adults are meant to act more “grown-up” and mature, playing around, goofing off, being ridiculous, wandering a bit, and being aimless sometimes is necessary for one’s overall well-being. How else can we hand
le the added responsibilities that life sends our way as we get older?
Social media is yet another sphere of life that students and young adults are ceding to more serious pursuits like college and a career. The era of university-bound high school and college students goofing off and posting about their antics seems to be over, for better or worse, and universities are certainly trying to end it once the young women and men step onto campus. Perhaps play, goofing off, and silliness do not belong on social media at all, yet the systematic “cleaning up” of anything that doesn’t belong on the highlight reel is contributing to a success- and achievement-driven culture of young adults who know only extremes—how to be single-mindedly focused on the task of becoming job-ready, often by doing a whole host of activities that prove they are superachieving.
That young adults are finding outlets for play in Snapchat and Yik Yak is helpful, even though both platforms feature their share of problematic and risky behavior. But the fact that these are fast becoming the only outlets for such behavior—that anything that isn’t part of the highlight real must disappear or be anonymous—is disconcerting.
7. THE VIRTUE OF UNPLUGGING: THE CAPACITY TO SIT, THINK, AND BE ALONE
Because social media and smartphones are exacerbating a go, go, go, high-achieving, success-driven culture, it has never been more important to consider our ability to stop and be still. So many students expressed both their belief that because of smartphones there exists an expectation that they be available and “on” 24/7 and a concern that because of smartphones and the near-constant compulsion to check their social media apps, people do not know how to be alone anymore. Our capacity to be patient and our attention spans are becoming casualties of the ubiquity of smartphones in our lives.
Yet our capacity to be alone, to slow down, to be still, to rest, to do nothing at all is essential for health and well-being, for decision-making, for self-understanding, happiness, peace, and relaxation, to catch those random moments of beauty that the young man spoke about in my class. Young adults need the time and space to get to know themselves, to reflect on who they are and what they want from life, from their communities, from their relationships. Security, self-esteem, and personal well-being are connected to our capacity to be alone and to be comfortable with ourselves and our thoughts. Just as we need the time and the right to be playful and fun, we need the time and the right to ponder, to watch and to listen, to pay attention to the world around us.
We must ask ourselves: How can we do less? How can we learn to be alone with our thoughts? How can we become more comfortable with boredom and stillness? How can we overcome, at least sometimes, the compulsion to grab for our phones every time we are waiting in line or walking alone across campus, or when there is a lull in conversation? We need to think about ways to structure our lives so we don’t have to be available all the time, so that we can have designated times when we are unplugged. It is essential to our happiness and well-being.
8. THE VIRTUE OF QUITTING: WHY GIVING UP CAN BE EMPOWERING
The notion that we should never quit, that we should try, try, and try again, is a popular ideal in American society, but I don’t think we should hold to it when it comes to social media and our smartphones. Knowing when to stop, when to set something aside, how to decide when something isn’t working and it’s time to move on—maybe not forever, but at least for a while—is a good skill to have. It’s never been more essential than it is now.
The stories of students who quit various platforms on social media either temporarily or permanently should force us to consider the importance of knowing why and when to do this, as well as the benefit of being able to let go in order to choose a healthier path forward. They are doing their best to figure out a positive relationship to social media without much guidance, largely because we are all struggling with the very same things ourselves. The students who quit not only are standing up for themselves but also serve as examples of the importance of drawing boundaries, of acknowledging limits, of being able to step back and step away, and the benefits of doing so. Even a temporary respite can help empower us to gain a new perspective, critical distance, emotional repair, and a kind of freedom in living apart as opposed to desperately treading water or remaining in a place that makes us feel like we are out of control.
We do not have to be powerless in the face of new technologies, in the face of social media and our devices. Quitting either permanently or temporarily, on a grand scale or a much smaller one, may be one of the healthiest steps we can take. The degree to which one steps away is personal and individual, yet the wisdom of doing so is something I believe that all of us need to consider.
THE GOLDEN RULE OF SOCIAL MEDIA FOR OUR NEW AND VIRTUAL WORLD
By considering these eight virtues in relation to our online lives and teaching our young people to do the same, I believe we can at least begin to develop a healthier relationship to social media. It may make a lot of sense not to bare our souls and our deepest feelings on Facebook. But if we decide this is what we believe, then perhaps we will be required to change our overall relationship to social media, lest we risk our souls and our emotional lives in the process. If social media truly requires such filters to maintain a healthy public and professional life, then perhaps we need to renegotiate our use of it.
This is not to say that we must develop specific guidelines for all individuals on how much time, checking, and posting is healthy or normal. As Aristotle suggests, each person’s virtuous “mean” will likely be different. But I do believe we need to develop a framework for thinking about our needs in relation to our usage, so as we raise and teach our children, and consider this in our own lives, we can come to some decisions about how we are going to use (and not be used by) these platforms.
All of which is to say that, if there is one overarching rule that can be said to encompass these virtues and help us better navigate the shifting world of social media, it is another one borrowed from the ancient Greeks: know thyself. Know your limits. Know what you can handle and what you can’t. Know what upsets you and what makes you happy. Know what you value and what you don’t. And, most important, know who you are offline so that what you see online doesn’t give you a distorted self-image. By knowing ourselves, we can take back the power social media has over us, if we do indeed determine that it has taken too much power away.
But knowing ourselves takes time and work and intention.
Taking the time and doing this work is essential. We need to carve out the time and make this investment at home and in our classrooms, be they in high schools or on college campuses.
Over and over again, students discussed how, ideally, social media and smartphones should be “tools” that serve our self-expression, our sense of purpose, and our relationships. I think we need to reckon with the possibility that if social media and smartphones are to be tools, many of us may need to change our habits.
One of the best places to negotiate these changes, to critically analyze their need and significance, and to bring all the resources of a multitude of disciplines to bear on this endeavor is within the classroom at our high schools, colleges, and universities. Critical thinking is what we are meant to do in the classroom and navigating this new and virtual world requires critical thinking on a scale we’ve yet to devote to it. Universities in particular are places where some of the greatest minds alive have gathered to think through the most serious issues and most difficult challenges and changes we face in our culture and the wider world. We likewise draw the most gifted minds of the next generation to our campuses, and our job is to challenge those minds to engage with the world as it is, not simply as it has existed in the past.
College is supposed to be a place to ask the biggest most important questions a person can ask. We need to be asking big questions about social media and smartphones, too, outside the classroom of course, but inside the classroom, too. We cannot abandon our students and the next generation to navigate the stormy waters of social media and smar
tphones on their own. It is the responsibility of university administration and faculty to take seriously the challenges we face because of the dramatic changes social media and smartphones have brought to our world. To ignore this or turn away with our noses in the air because social media is “frivolous” and so very contemporary is to fail the young people who populate our campuses and lives, and to do so is a failure to see the intellectual and academic implications that social media and new technologies touch on in every one of the humanities and social sciences, and in the most high-minded of ways.
Today’s college students are truly pioneers: they are among the first to not only grow up on social media but also have their lives shaped by it. They are part of the first generation that has had to react to others’ online mistakes and modify their own behavior accordingly. The themes their stories raise are incredibly provocative. Given that they emerge out of the sphere of higher education, I hope they will become a reason for many of us to take on the responsibility of thinking critically and reflectively, not just reactively, about the ways in which social media is changing how we think about ourselves and interact with the world—in both its real and virtual dimensions. And I hope that with time and work and intention devoted to rethinking the advice we offer the young, we will be able to engage in a new, productive, and intergenerational conversation about the lives we are living and creating online—one that will empower us to move beyond the happiness effect and the professionalization of all that we do and are and feel.
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