There’s a total disconnect between how people behave online and in real life

Social media was meant to democratise politics but we have no time to analyse it, finds David Bone

Politics and social media, it’s like a lit match at a petrol station. The unnecessary division, argument and constant, low-level, unconstructive dialogue that it generates can get tiresome.

In the last few months I have been told to ‘emigrate’ and that ‘we don’t want your kind here’ because I voted ‘No’ in the Scottish independence referendum. I have recently been called a name unsuitable for publication because of where I chose to put an ‘X’ on a bit of paper.

None of these insults were face-toface. There were all from the quagmire of social media, where everyone is the baron of their own narcissistic fiefdom, are correct on every issue and have their opinions further reinforced by other like-mind- ed‘friends’. Whatwaspreviously the domain of the conspiracy theorist is now mainstream. Originally, social media was meant to democratise debate and politics. We were supposed to have the blinkers of the mainstream media removed so we could finally see who is controlling the shadows in the cave.

But the mainstream media do filter information out, by fact checking and referencing. They employ people to do this. Surely this is preferable to believing that the Queen is a bipedal lizard or that Lady Ga Ga is a Satanist? There is a total disconnect between how people behave online and in real life. We are social animals and have evolved to take body language, speech inflection and other subtle cues as part of the whole plethora of communication