Love is not irritable
1 Corinthians 13:5
Social media often becomes a platform for venting. People tend to post and share their initial anger rather than contemplate and share a well-thought admonition or critique. If we search for something to get mad at, I guarantee we will find something. Not only do people share rash comments, but we tend to get easily angered by those rash comments and follow them up with rash comments of our own. This cycle can get perpetuated unwittingly into endless comment streams of name-calling and back-at-yous. There are topics and issues which easily get us riled up. Social media is a really dangerous place for such a struggle, for there is a never-ending list of issues and people to fight. It is also common to find sources who intentionally present issues to hit maximum anger. They try their best to present issues in their most riling light so that people will get angry enough to ‘do something.’ Decisions made from irritability and rash anger are themselves rash and will only agitate problems. If an issue has enough validity to be acted upon, then it shall be convincing without the need for anger-inducement. People who feel desperate for validity use anger tactics to win people over instead of reason, facts, or love. If we are not careful, we will absorb ourselves into this “outrage” culture where we are constantly seeing things which anger us. Especially given social media’s algorithms of suggested material, when we “interact” with certain posts or videos by viewing or commenting on them, we are only asking the algorithms to give us more of the same. Don’t make your social media about anger and irritability. Focus on what is more worthy, even if it’s the same issue presented in a more godly way.
Next: Resentment