Do you think Mark Zuckerberg thought Facebook would be what it is today when he was sitting in his Harvard dorm room?

Do you think the founders of Twitter would have done it differently if they had known what 140 characters would mean today?

The creators of Snapchat, Periscope and any of a dozen other social media outlet creators must be sitting in wonder today as the world we know — and sadly the news we read and believe — is transmitted to countless thousands in short snippets, pictures and links.

Gone are the days of depth and nuance, context and understanding. We find ourselves only wanting information in quick bites, where the information is often light on facts and heavy on subjectivity.

We have gone from a society looking for a good read to falling for the latest click bait article.

We have gone from taking time to learn more to just following the crowd; gone from standing up for our beliefs to falling for the best quip.

The current political landscape in our nation has only been made worse by our admitted dependence on social media. We go from one update to the next, one meme to the next, getting the latest information on the candidate you support, or better yet, finding out the latest rumor on the candidate you do not support.

But while we have gone from update to the next, one funny or mean meme to the next, we have sadly failed to do what we are called to do — learn.

Regardless of what candidate or party you support, whether your party’s symbol is donkey or elephant, we can all agree this election is far more important than we realize.

We can all agree that whomever the next President of the United States is, the challenges they will face, the problems they must solve will be far bigger, far more difficult than anyone could imagine.

And, we can all agree that those solutions, those answers will be found in good counsel, strong faith and daily prayer.

We are going to demand much of our next president. And, whether it is Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, it will be crucial for our country for us to come together and follow “our president.”

So, with just over 100 days left before November’s Election Day, let us take our job seriously. Let us do our research, let us read about the issues and dig deeper than the short-sighted tweets and updates.

Our job is important and it is not one we should leave to social media.

 

Tim Reeves is publisher of The Vicksburg Post. You may reach him at tim.reeves@vicksburgpost.com. Readers are invited to submit their opinions for publication.