The Social Reality Challenge

You've had a long day at work. You get home, turn on the computer and escape into the lives of others.

How was their day? Did they get the promotion at work? Did their kid finally go #2 all on his own? Let's see those vacation pics!

You may even share something about yourself.

Here's what's for dinner. Look what my dog did today when I was gone! Boy, I can't wait til Friday, we're gonna get wasted!!!

It's all fine to share our lives and see what that person from middle school is up to ( granted they live 3 miles away from you and you have not seen them in 15 years.) My question is, how come we don't share anything that's real?

The ability to share information goes back to cave drawings. Being able to pass on to others your experiences and knowledge is what's made humans expand and grow. In the past an idea would take hours, months, years or even decades to share. Now I can just type a few buttons, push enter and WOW! My idea is now there for everybody to see. We have the technology to spread ideas faster than ever, yet we use it mostly to share funny cat photos.

I am not against the entertainment factor that the internet can provide. I just think we as humans are missing out on so much more. Yet we seem to ignore that in our daily lives. Most, just don't have the time anymore. (Really?) The other possibility is the fear of how others may respond to our thoughts. "I really don't like what I'm hearing about what the POTUS is doing about this situation. Here's an idea of what I would do in his place." Get ready for normal attacks from all sides about anything not related to the original post (Trolls?) There is rarely a discussion of any meaning.

In the blogging community we do this fairly well. I think we should challenge ourselves and our "friends / circles" to do the same on a smaller scale using Facebook / Google+ / whatever. Maybe call it the "Share what's really on your mind challenge" or "The social reality challenge." Write one post about something you normally wouldn't share. Be it politics, religion, education, crime, community, whatever. Let us just think outside the box of "It's really hot out today" posts. The second part of the challenge, respond to others. Continue the conversation. Do so respectfully yet don't be afraid to disagree.

If we teach or learn just one idea each per day / week / month, wouldn't that make things better for everybody? What do you think? Are there topics that we should be talking about more yet for some reason choose not to? Are current events, politics, religion, race and such just taboo for sharing? Should we just leave the social media sites as they are and not stir the waters.