So, I'm a little sick of the I am Internet. Not because of the Internet itself - that's an amazing tool. I'm sick of it because of one simple thing: us. I am sick and tired of when a (name a socially contentious event) happens and I can already predict exactly what my news feed will be plastered with for the next couple of weeks; until we get distracted with the next issue and never actually make progress as a society. "Guns aren't the problem!! It's the people" vs "Guns need to be banned!!" It's like the most dysfunctional marriage ever. We argue for hours on end, just screaming our point, never listening to the other side and then we go to sleep. Only to wake up the next day facing the same problems and to never bother to try and reach some middle ground. And what sucks is it's not exactly our fault: it's the fault of our leaders who just feed off of the controversy to serve their own interests. Or perhaps it is ultimately our fault because we vote for people who don't know how to compromise.
When did this happen? When did we become so polarized on any important issue, that all we can do is yell our point. To behave as if compromise is somehow equivalent to evil and a dismissal of our ideals, instead of a necessary part of a relationship. Because all of society is in a relationship with each other. Maybe it's always been the case and the Internet just makes it easier to feed flames into the fire. Now we don't have to argue with another human face, we're just arguing with a screen of light, and we can so easily find confirmation of our thoughts from the same screen. Maybe it's just the way things are now. Or maybe it's on us to realize the nature of our new tool and to adapt our behavior and not feed into the extremities we are tricked into supporting.