Is there any such thing as morality anymore? Now I am an ageing punk rocker. I have always stood against the hypocricy that I saw in society. Single mothers marginalised. Children born out of wedlock marginalised. Paedophile priests lecturing us on morality are a few examples of where morality was completely subverted for me as a teenager. However, there are many aspects of morality that I think are important and beneficial to society. Kindness and decency are important aspects of this. Be it offering a seat to an old lady with shopping, apologising for mistakes (and accepting genuine apologies) and not seeking undeserved plaudits from ones peers. In the last 20 years, we've seen the rise of social media. My first exposure to this was Friends Reunited. This gave us the opportuiinty to catch up with school mates we'd lost touch with. That was superceded by Facebook, Twitter (X), Instagram and TikTok.
When I first logged on to Friends Reunited, I didn't realise the Pandoras box I was opening. I've learned many things about friends and acquaintances which I really wish I didn't know. We no longer find partners by meeting them at the pub. We go on to dating apps. When I met my wife, we clicked and found out that we had things in common. We've had a lot of fun over the years. These days, it would be easy to swipe past someone who you might get on with like a house on fire. If we set up dating profiles, I doubt we'd have too much in common. I see so many pretty girls, who have been surgically enhanced in some way. Oddly, I rarely think that this is an improvement, but I presume it makes them think they will be more attractive on a dating app or will help them get more views on tiktok?
What really concerns me is that we seem to be sacrificing our basic humanity on the alter of technology. I suspect some people would only offer a seat for an old lady on the bus, if they could post it on TikTok and have all their friends say they were marvellous. Is this really the society and the image of humanity that we want. I quite like it when people do acts of random kindness and don't brag about it. I always think that having someone say your marvellous is a wonderful thing, but only when it is unsolicited. We will not see the demise of such platforms any time soon, so we have to get used to it. All I can say is that I do hope we realise that what we see on social media platforms is not the real world. There is more to life and I think a lot of us would be a lot happier if we spent a lot less time on line and worried far less about what strangers had to say about us.
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