Years ago on this blog, I warned of the dangers of social media. Now, one by one, governments, school districts, and concerned parents are restricting the use of mobile phones and access to social media for children under the age of 16. Entire countries have banned the use of mobile phones in classrooms.
Lovely. Wonderful. Welcome to the world of common sense. Better late than never. Glad you could join me.
Perhaps we can salvage the next generation. Perhaps they’ll be able to function on the most basic level without checking with YouTube to learn how to do whatever it is, or to check with their peers on Tik Tok to see if whatever it is trending or popular.
Perhaps they’ll be not be a slave to ‘likes’ from ‘followers’ or so susceptible to ‘cancelling’ someone, living or dead, because the person in question had a single controversial opinion, fell short of absolute perfection during their lifetime, or at some point in time, or did not adhere to present-day social or behavioral norms even thought they lived a hundred or two hundred or three hundred years ago.
Perhaps, in short, they’ll learn to think for themselves.
If they struggle to do so and come to me for direction or guidance, I would be delighted to assist. I would advise them to embrace a concept, which is, Build a moat around your mind.
By this I mean, put some distance, some delay, and some fortification between you and all the noise and ‘news’ of the world. Make your mind, your emotions, and your opinions difficult to access. Treat your grey matter as a rarified and precious space in which only noble, worthy, and intelligent ideas and information dwell.
How? Oh, let me just toss out a few ideas…
Reduce screen time, as the phone in your hand is the closest and most intimate device you own. It is, literally, within arm’s reach and within your grasp too often. It is almost a physical appendage for most people and an addiction for millions. Social media that engages with you through your phone is the most frequent and the most dangerous. You turn to you phone at any free moment, usually for no reason. You are bombarded by information. You give your spirit no free time to breathe, not time to ponder, no time to appreciate life. Information is bulldozing your soul, and it’s making you unhappy. Look at your phone 5 times a day for personal messages, maximum. Don’t scroll. There’s nothing there, my darlings.
The news media contributes to your confusion and unhappiness as well. Every day holds a crisis or a calamity. Celebrities consume an inordinate amount of oxygen. Opinions dominate. Few have merit. Today’s news channels drive an agenda and polarize thinking. Newspapers and television networks have corporate/billionaire owners who, almost without exception, sculpt their reporting of events to fit an ideology and/or maximize a quarterly profit.
Limit your exposure. Curate your sources. Read headlines from a variety of publications. Watch little news. Read some news. Realize that the sources you rely on are shaping how you see the world, and how you see the world is incomplete, regardless of how much news you consume. Resolve to inform and author your own perspective deliberately and suspiciously.
Regarding your friends, they know nothing. Ignore their opinions and do not go to them for insights on politics or current events. People who really know things have been vetted. They have obtained security clearances. They have signed very enforceable documents that prohibit them from sharing vital information with people like you, meaning a ‘civilian’. So put a moat between yourself and your friends’ opinions. Put a moat between you and your family’s opinions, too.
Realizing now that you know very little, you are free to be less opinionated and less influenced by others who know very little, too. You can do research on your own, certainly, and discover facts–some inconvenient–and develop a more well-rounded and nuanced worldview. But this will not make you more certain. It will make you more circumspect, less inclined to be dogmatic. Less inclined to be angry. Less inclined to share or argue with idiots online.
It has been said that no man is an island, but each person can be a fortress. Within that fortress can live objectivity, compassion, thoughtfulness, and hope. But it must be protected.
So build a moat around your mind.
- BGT
To moats! Cheers.