A couple of months ago, I listened to an episode of Modern Wisdom featuring Ezra Klein. He discussed how social media has impacted us. Though the conversation was more political in tone (isn’t everything these days?), it got me thinking about how our communication has changed since social media started.

Maybe it’s generational, but I’ve never gotten hooked on scrolling or keeping up with friends and neighbors via social media.

I post quotes on my Facebook business page and on LinkedIn. Periodically, I’ll post on Instagram. Maybe I’ll check out a couple of other posts, but then I’m pretty much done. I learned early on that spending too much time scrolling rarely left me feeling better than when I started.

Doing Posting

In my experience, social media seems to reward controversy and opinions that reinforce what people already believe. There seems to be less room for conversations that welcome different perspectives.

A conversation that stuck with me was Klein’s reference to “doing posting”: communicating primarily to energize people who already agree with you. Klein argues that real democratic engagement requires living with disagreement and making ideas understandable to people outside your own group.

Have we become so tied to declaring our opinions online that we bring that same certainty into our offline conversations?

Isn’t meaningful conversation about being willing to hear something other than what we already believe?

Asking More Questions

I’ve had plenty of conversations with people who see things differently than I do. In fact, one standout was a conversation about immigration. The more we talked, the more curious I became about our differences. By the end, we realized we agreed on more than we disagreed! It was no longer about who was wrong or right. I found myself thinking, “I’ve never thought of it that way. I want to learn more.”

Maybe we should spend more time building bridges than burning them.

As a writer, speaker, and facilitator, I’ve learned that asking the right questions can change the direction of a conversation. Without asking questions, I remain stuck in my ideas and opinions. I’m right, you’re wrong. I’m good, you’re bad. I’m smart, you’re stupid. And it just ends there.

We have drawn the line in the sand, and that’s it: kaput, over, done. Conversation over.

Deep conversations, even when we disagree, enrich our lives. We may discover common ground, even if we arrive there for different reasons.

We need more bridges.

That’s love in action!

Love,

Nicki