LUKE MARSDEN: social media's far from kind side

Two years have passed since her wishes that online social media users #bekind.

I’d argue for a variety of reasons that the opposite is now the norm.

After her death I appeared on Sky News and said that “be kind is a great message but only if people are actually going to follow through on that.”

These days it would be better suited to a skin care brand than applicable to corners of the web.

This week also (ironic or not) marked Random Acts of Kindness Day.

I’ll be the first to admit I didn’t do a random act of kindness.

I attempt to always deliver kindness purposefully. You only have to search the #bekind hashtag to read not so kind tweets, or heck you only have to write a column talking about The Brits as I did last week and receive some not so kind tweets.

As I’ve said many times before, it is water off a duck’s back to me but for many, that simply isn’t the case.

I’ve never really understood trolling. You wouldn’t shout and scream and hurl abuse at someone in your local Tesco Express (you’d hope) if they said or did something in their personal lives that had nothing to do with you.

Yet many feel it so necessary to verbally attack for that reason. I often laugh amongst my friends that we all “live for the Instagram,” but as a friend pointed out to me this week, social media stopped being fun quite some time ago.

Perhaps I’m getting old but before I do a tweet or Facebook status, I’ve started to ask myself, would the response be worth the hassle? If the answer is yes, then remember to be kind!

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