Using Tools Well

ALTHOUGH I DON'T USE much social Media, I hear there's a lot of anger and meanness on it. how surprising. Just like the real world. I am grateful for the opportunity to stay away from social media, and grateful knowing its there, with its potential for human communication and togetherness. One can take pictures of one's pretty self and one's pretty house and car and post 'tm and narcissize to one's little heart's content. By the time I'm done writing my daily essay, I'm done with screens. Maybe someday I'll get another television, but for now, I'm glad to be without it, and have been for years. social media, with all its benefits, is designed, unintentionally, to bring out the worst in people, by giving them an opportunity to express themselves to billions of people anonymously, without consequences. That's powerful stuff. Tvs and smart phones, as wonderful as they are, can give one a feeling of being liberated by not having them. Proper use of all powerful tools is strongly encouraged. Military history clearly demonstrates that humans don't always get along well face to face, although most of the time we do. For the unwashed masses to be walking around attached to smart phones can be seen as a democratizing tool personal empowerment, as long as they are used for that purpose. Taking selfies or inviting strangers to comment on how pretty my house or hair style is does not feed the hungry nor raise the minimum wage.The number of Americans who do not automatically get enough to eat everyday is shocking. We could use our smart phones and all our other screens to end poverty and hunger and raise wages for the working poor, by organizing millions of poor working people to force the wealthy powerful few to stop exploiting and start helping the poor. In America, many poor people have smart phones and flat screens, and seemingly little else, amazingly. In America, where we avoid and ignore each other, we have much to learn about our poor. There is no law of nature that says that we must use the internet to convey hatred and anger to each other, and there is no reason, no law of nature, which says that we cannot use these marvelous tools to improve life for all of us, without harming anyone. May our New Year's Resolution be to do just that.