Is social media crushing communities?

As a PR professional I’m well aware of the value of social media. I make use of twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Pinterest to assist my clients. I’m also well aware of the dangers of misusing it when promoting a company, organisation, event or place. There is a litany of case studies showing us all how not to do social media and learn the lessons of others’ mistakes. Of late I’ve become more concerned about a wider danger that social media seems to encourage – the malaise of negativity and apathy and the possibility that it is eating away at the community spirit.

Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter give people the opportunity to sit behind a PC or laptop and take pops at anything and everything. It seems that the relative anonymity of a social media account encourages people to want to pull things down instead of making positive contributions to our communities. Time and again I log on to see comment after comment taking a side swipe at anything related to my home town of Mansfield, its people and the surrounding area to the point where it almost becomes a feeding frenzy for negativity. There is plenty that could be better in our town, equally there is plenty that could be a hell of a lot worse, but it’s the downside that many of the social media commentators seem to not only focus on but actively encourage others to see as well; blinkering them to the positives at the same time.