By

REY A. ALMOGUERRA

Admin Aide IV, MNCHS

In this eon of social media where you can post about anything, overly concerned friends or perhaps your neighbor seems to spy on your every comment or post. Though it has been a common practice, that we snoop around and sniff everyone’s business.

What is going on earth lately folks? Why is it every time we see or read something we give double meaning to every word in each sentence? Why do we own the post and think it is about us?

No one can stop a person to share his or her thoughts about all subjects in their life and post them on social media. Anyone can pretend to be a fool, an expert, a saint, or even Batman’s Joker. Nevertheless, it’s easy to judge them just because to you– they seem like a loose cannon. They may appear like an open book, be that as it may, don’t forget we still don’t know anything about their lives. Or their struggles and what they are going through. Only when you walk in their shoes should you know who they are.

One can merely create so much drama as to call out any person they like to catch their attention. There’s this kind of thrill it gives when you want to stir emotions, cause to start a gossip, and deliberately inflict pain. What’s paradoxically amazing and persuasively mind baffling is the audacity of some to talk about a person through the comment box for all their friends to read. The after effect though is that someone can screenshot said comment and conversation that can lead to more fights and unwarranted hostility among friends and family.

The best practice we can apply in making use of social media is to use it to disseminate facts and information especially when there are calamities. It has proven to help the community. It is fast and reliable and most of the time they can reach more concerned individuals than calling their hotline numbers. We can share quotes and memes and nothing matters as long as people stop putting double meaning to it.

There’s no end to social media use. It can be used either to your success since you can use it to start your business or to your downfall. Anything that is said in social media to the damage of a person is punishable under the Cybercrime Law of the Philippines including all crimes committed with the help of social media and other internet platforms and applications. Simply put– it has no safe ground. The use of social media ultimately has increased through the years. The evolution of social media has been fueled by the human impulse to communicate and by advances in digital technology. It is a story about establishing and nurturing personal connections at scale.

Maybe we have taken advantage of the privileges that it gives that we fail to use it responsibly. While it’s meant to purposely fill the communication gaps, we miserably did not thrive to properly utilize it. There’s need for more work to refine the job half-done but being careful and thinking first about the consequences would mean a lot and save our faces in the aftermath.