A Practive Approach for Engaging the Socials
Mindset, strategies, and practices to stay safe
“Don’t envy evil people or desire their company. For their hearts plot violence, and their words always stir up trouble. A house is built by wisdom and becomes strong through good sense. Through knowledge its rooms are filled with all sorts of precious riches and valuables. The wise are mightier than the strong, and those with knowledge grow stronger, and stronger. So don’t go to war without wise guidance; victory depends on having many advisers.” Proverbs 24:1-6 NLT.
Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF)
Social media participation is nearly unavoidable in today’s Internet centric world. Indeed there are a great number of benefits the social platforms offer us, including the ability to reach and interact with people and content beyond our natural sphere of influence and access. This is helpful for individuals and for businesses. People love to be connected, known, and valued and this is fundamentally what the social platforms offer to us. There is much to be gained by this, which is why the socials are used for connection, entertainment, news, and education.
However there is a significant dark side to social media that is resulting in real, documented, and diagnosed levels of mental illness on an unprecedented global scale. Through the socials, the sin of mankind is unleashed upon each participent with few (if any) filters and there are many purveyors of the perverse and grotesque. It is a battlefield of the mind, heart, soul, and body.
So, balance is needed and is possible if you maintain a sound strategy for engaging the socials. As you engage, build a strategy around these core truths.
The digital space is an alternate world where everyone is an avatar. However, that alternate world and its occupants very much influence the real one. Treat every persona as a projection, and delegate trust only once the persona can be validated. Remember that what happens in the socials will affect real life. Indeed what happens in the social space often sets the narrative that the physical world follows.
The social platforms themselves are designed to be addictive; to capture and retain your attention, so that your behavior can be influenced. Remember this so you may avoid being ensnared.
The Internet is forever and once you share or convey something, you release control over it. You need to consider what you are sharing in light of your future self, as well as the potential recipients of your conveyance.
Bots and trolls flood the social media space with fake and harmful content and to conduct espionage. Be quick to ignore, block, and skip engagement from others.
You are being monitored, profiled, pursued, and manipulated. On the Internet, and especially through the socials, the darkest sins of humanity thrive and the purveyors are constantly looking to expand and find victims.
Knowing this, it is prudent to build a strategy for engagement. To help build this strategy, consider asking yourself the following and use your answers as a guide:
Why am I using social media?
What do I need to protect and from whom?
What are my boundaries and limitations?
How do I remain grounded in truth?
How do I remain accountable to my values and moral standards?
Consider also, putting these into practice:
Minimize your engagement, and keep to small circles of trust. Limit your time and use of social media. Set boundaries for use in time and purpose, and stick with them.
Use anonymity whenever possible (a non-attributable name and profile picture).
Stay rooted in the physical world with a group of family and friends who you can meet with regularly in person. Prioritize this over social media engagements, and hold off the “posts” for in-person sharing. Share what you learned in the socials with your friends in person.
Secure your account with strong authentication - a unique password and MFA / 2FA turned on. This will help protect you and your friends from predators and imposters.
Do not share personally sensitive information publicly, especially if you use your real name and picture of yourself in your profile. What you share can be used against you.
Remember that you lose control over everything you convey online. This includes your words, pictures, videos, even likes and views. In the era of AI, this is especially important as a single picture and audio recording can be used to create a fake portrayal of you.
Treat every account / persona as fake and untrustworthy until you have validated it through proper diligence.
If you hesitate to post or share something, then don’t. If you feel an urgency to “chime in,” then wait. Police your history by deleting posts or content that you have shared, but later feel uneasy about. There is no harm in removing something from view after it has been shared.
Avoid commenting about your employer, school, or other authority figures in your life. Remember that employers will often use your social media activity as a personal reference or in background investigations.
Remember when commenting about other people or sharing content related to or that includes them, to consider their privacy and sensitivities now and in the future. Ask if they want to be known by you.
We continue on into the details in the sections that follow.
