Do you sometimes find that social media is not all that social?
Do posts sometimes make you feel angry and result in you bashing out inelegant responses?
Are you lost for words?
Do you wish that you had put more thought into your replies?
If you answered yes to any of the above then this Reply assistant for social media might help you. It provides a set of tips that you can use to consider how (and if) you respond.
All tips are shown by default, unless you select one or more of the following tags.
Being polite in your reply probably shows that you are a reasonable person and that you respect the recipient (to some extent). You might not agree with their view, but it is still good manners to be polite. This might put the other person at ease, and you are more likely to get a sensible discussion.
Tags: Polite
Acknowledge the good and/or correct aspects in the post/tweet that you are replying to. This demonstrates respect and clarifies which aspects you do agree with. Without clarification, people sometimes broadly agree in principle but are unaware of it - whilst they argue over a misunderstanding.
Tags: Acknowledge
"It is a fact" - the much misused term on social media. You might want to first check that you do have accurate facts. Is your knowledge correct? Is the source that you are using credible? How do you know - have you checked? Scientific sources in peer reviewed papers and journals are a good source - but one study alone is not necessarily scientific proof or validation. Be aware that non-scientific sources are often subject to significant levels of inaccuracy. Be aware that a "fact" might be accurate for a specific context, but it might be inaccurate in other contexts.
Tags: Facts
It is good practice to include references to the information that you base your conclusion on. This allows the recipient to learn about the topic and/or show why your conclusion might be inaccurate.
Tags: Facts Reference
A great way to find "facts" that might have a significant amount of credibility is to search using Google Scholar: About and Search. [Start with the science.]
Tags: Facts Reference
"We cannot be absolutely sure about anything!" - and I'm not even sure about that :-)
So just reflect carefully on what you are about to say. How accurate is it, and how applicable is it to every context?
Tags: Facts Rule0 Perspective
Here is one aspect that you will not be aware of... the perspective of everyone else, in all contexts. So realise that your view is a limited view of all potential perspectives. Others might see and experience things differently. You can learn about their perspective by asking them about it. Perhaps this is where IMO (In My humble Opinion) becomes relevant.
Tags: Perspective
Humour might make people laugh. It might calm down a situation. However, sometimes it might be misinterpreted, and sometimes it might make people angry. Keeping it polite and avoiding swearing might help. There is a skill in getting humour right, and even then someone might still complain :D
Tags: Polite Humour
Sometimes you might think a post/tweet is completely wrong, and sometimes they might make you angry. The impulse to go on the attack might be strong, but sometimes it might be best (for you) to just ignore it and do nothing: No reply. If you suspect the person is ignorant, stupid, unwilling to learn, aggressive, or all of these then it is probably best to ignore their post.
Tags: Ignore
If you suspect a person is ignorant, stupid, unwilling to learn, and aggressive then consider ignoring all of their posts/tweets and replies. There is usually an option to "unfollow" or block such people. But before you do that give them a chance to show their better side. You might have just caught them on a bad day, or a topic that they have been misinformed about by others. Many people block others too quickly, and for relatively trivial reasons. You might be able to use the tips shown here to inform them about other perspectives and provide credible sources of information. If you can do that and educate them then you deserve an award :D
Tags: Silence
"Cancel culture" refers to a group of people that petition to block someone appearing at an event, or remove them from a post. Often the group of people represent a minority in the sense that a greater number of people have the opposite opinion or they do not support the view of the group. This has the potential to become a destructive culture that destroys the right to free speech, and ultimately that destroys democracy. It risks the suppression of facts, and removes the opportunity to improve our lives. We can only make effective improvements when we have all of the facts and perspectives - and that means listening to the experiences of everyone. [Here is an idea: if petitions recorded both the number of people that supported a motion and those that rejected it then the net result would be more representative of society.]
Tags: Silence
Your carefully crafted reply (or not)...
Copy and paste into your social media platform.
Fri 14 Aug 15:37:00 BST 2020