Trolls, and Filter Bubble

Fitting the System

Trolls... Trolls everywhere. As you go about your day you will stumble upon some pretty mean stuff. I was watching some videos of the worst friends and for the most part was funny until the last video. The setting is on a frozen lake and there are two guys standing on it and the camera man is on the far, then he yells something like "do it now". So this guy throws a huge rock to where one guy is standing so the ice breaks and he falls in. You can see this guy struggling for his life in the ice cold water and his "friends" are peeing their pants because they cannot stop laughing. What kind of people are these people??? He could have died! But anyways after my ranting lets talk about trolls.

The definition of a troll according to beautiful Urban Dictionary is, being an evil person on the internet because you can. Of course I said it with a not so violent vocabulary but the meaning remains. I bet that for every sweet little ball of fur on the planet there is one to three trolls. So the first thing I am going to talk about is what I learned with Sir George Takei on Youtube (Yes he has a channel) about Trolls. He made a good point on how to fight them, and the way to accomplish this is: to not fight them. You see, trolls feed off of attention so if you ignore them they will soon get tired and extinguish in agony. Or you could fight the evil with love <3 If a troll says something mean about you, instead of fighting just be nice, because they may have never experienced being treated nicely. 

The second thing is the Filter Bubble, have you ever realized that the YouTube recommendations are videos of things related to stuff you´ve seen before? Well, this is because your devices store your search data and whenever you look for something it will use that information to get you the best results, that are related to you. If you ever compare your search with someone else´s screen, you will realize you both have different results, even if you searched for the same thing. This is called the Filter Bubble, is the bubble within the bubble that keeps your interests.  You will see things you like and feel compatible with and its nice, right? I will have to disagree, because this Filter bubble isolates you from new ideas, some ideas you won't want to hear but then again did slave owners like to hear that black beautiful people where humans too? You see there are other ideas that you wont agree and that you will enter into conflict with, but conflict will make you grow and your mind will be open to newer and better things. There is this search engine called duckduckgo.com it does not store any data so it will be a little harder to find stuff but it will help you see a wider world. 

I invite you to compare your search results with people in other locations, maybe relatives or acquaintances that live in another place screenshot it and share. I also invite you to be nice to someone, I read something cute on Pinterest that said "to be kind because everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about" You will be amazed. 

Con amor,

Linda

"Look up"

me, myself and my feelings 

You know what it reminds me of when people are looking down at their phones to avoid feeling awkward? The Le Miserable song: "look down, look down, don't look him in the eye" We are missing so much for looking down at our phones. We are even running into things because we don't want to deal with the real world. Like that lady whom ran into a drinking fountain because she was staring at her phone.

Kristen Howerton is a social media advocate that gave a ted talk about our diversions, she said that when we are stressed or in panic or with some sort of "crappy feelings" we tend to have diversions that distract us from our pain. In her case, she was in the Haiti Earthquake and her diversion was to prepare a well done suitcase that will allow her to leave Haiti with her new born child. She put her mind and will into it because she could not leave the building for safety reasons. American Citizens were picked up by military cargo airplanes so no luggage was allowed. Howerton was so attached to this suitcase for comfort that she even thought of leaving her baby, not really but she did have an emotional break down.

It feels like today we are so attached for comfort to our devices, we do not like to feel lonely so we avoid by all means that feeling, even in the bathroom... We are alone without feeling lonely, do you think this messes up our psychology? I would say yes. As I have written about this before, we have to be lonely so that we can enjoy company. What does it happen when we avoid feeling lonely? Obvious answer; we CANNOT enjoy company.

So if you ever feel bad after spending an afternoon with your friends or parents or someone you love, because you were not really there. Maybe think about going back to the human nature of being lonely so that you can enjoy the company of your loved ones. Just remember that they won't stick for too long and one day it will be too late to be with them, for reals.


Lots of love,


me