The Internet, fuelling hate or changing behaviour?
The Internet, fuelling hate or changing behaviour? In our modern world of communications where we are ruled by the internet and social media, many would agree that this has changed our lives forever. Before the 1980’s we all listened to the news on radios, watched TV and read newspapers. New items would often be a few days old and we all had time to consider our response and feelings before taking any action, if it was necessary.
Fast forward to 2018 and we now live in a “real-time” world, where media is instant, where we can communicate with anyone, anywhere in the world immediately and via video, not just phone. With this infrastructure in place we no longer take time to think about our responses and consequently many messages and reports are being sent as a “knee jerk” reply rather than a considered one, causing a great deal or anger and negativity across many different communities.
The scary fact for me is that this is not just a social issue but is becoming more common in commercial organisations as well. Having just read this article on the BBC website where Sir Tim Berners-Lee raises concerns about the way that his invention, the World Wide Web, is being used to fuel hate, it got me thinking. Whilst I agree with many things Sir Tim has said, I am not sure that the internet fuels hate rather it is the fact that the internet has meant that we have changed our behaviour and have stopped taking our time to consider our actions. The internet has driven us into a world where everything is immediate and we could all learn a lesson from our predecessors who, pondered decisions, took time to consider all information and most importantly to understand the impact our views would have on others.
I had a meeting with a business coach this morning, who I respect greatly and one of the key areas we were discussing was the ability to lead a board. One point is definite, if boards reacted instantly without considering the impact of their actions, many more business would go under.
As we go into Bonfire weekend why not take the time to think, to consider things a bit and rather than send a reply to a text, post or message instantly, sleep on it and see if your response changes, I suspect it might do.