Julie, Tony’s First NMT Therapist
So many years have passed since we worked together, and though you ended up needing to take a different job elsewhere to meet the needs of your own growing family, our family will never forget what you contributed to Tony’s progress during that first year of music therapy. For your patience and kindness with him and with me, you have my ongoing gratitude. Our family was forever touched by your positive, encouraging attitude, and our son was forever touched by your belief in him and his ability to grow and move forward. Many Thanks!
To Heidi and Randi
The two of you will never know what your texts meant to me this past week. I, my sweet sisters-in-law, have been an emotional mess this week and to have the two of you contact me with such lavish praise for my makeup skills really helped me to pick myself up emotionally on a day where my heart was weighted down with grief and so much more. No, I’m not starting a YouTube channel for makeup, though I am flattered Randi thinks I could pull that off. And I am honored, Heidi, that you trust my advice enough to have asked me some thoughts on brands I use. Thank you, both, for asking me to teach you how I do what I do, and I thank you in advance for your patience as I pull something more private together to do that.
A General Note:
My dearest friends, family, loved ones, subscribers, and readers just checking in: Right now we are in a transition period where at some point in the near future I will be taking over even more of Tony’s habilitation therapy hours. What this means in at least the short-term and possibly the long-term is that I am going to be busier than I already am/was. Posts will remain shorter and with fewer pictures for a while as I will be devoting a bit of extra time to helping our family move through this transition period. I thank each of you for your patience and understanding with me as a writer and a mom at this time.
Some Reading and Viewing To Consider:
I am going to lump the first set of recommendations together as they share a similar theme:
Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now, by Jaron Lanier
Jarod Lanier Fixes the Internet, NYT Opinion, YouTube Video
The Social Dilemma, Netflix
The central message for each of these recommendations is that you, as a user and consumer of social media, are not the actual customer for these platforms. The real customers, who are paying for advertisements or other content, are actually paying the social media platforms to not only engage you and your time, but to do so in a manner that is addictive and alters the way you think and act in a way that benefits the actual paying customers of the social media platforms. Which again, is not you.
Each of these works has pros and cons when it comes to presentation. Mr. Lanier is smart, the kind of smart that puts him in a stratosphere where he doesn’t have to engage with or care about what I personally think. And since I like that he mentions in his book that each of us should think critically about what he said, I encourage each of you to do the same, as I personally must note that there were some of his statements that I disagreed with. For example, he posits to a group of teenagers who ask him why they are here if AI is going to take away all of their jobs, leaving them with a “future [that] doesn’t need us…” that they “…must find meaning and optimism” and that “it is a duty not just to yourselves but to everyone.” I feel like his statements to them ignore everything that we know about learned helplessness. Because I am shorter on time right now, and I don’t feel it’s necessary for me to dissect every element where his views differ from mine for me to respect that this is still a worthy read to recommend, especially with our current events, I am going to leave my differences in opinion with that and move on.
What is incredibly important for you to note are his statements about the negative impacts social media can have on societies and civility as a whole, and that many in silicon valley will not allow their children to use social media. I think the same brilliant people who came up with the current model don’t need us to quit to fix the problems associated with it, they just simply wouldn’t have a financial motivation to do so otherwise. Unless, of course, more laws like Proposition 24 from California get passed which increases government regulation of how these platforms can use data they gather from their users…that might force change without people quitting or reducing their consumption of course. But his main point that each of us should be mindful of how we engage with social media is I think an important one to consider. Anyone seeking a condensed version of his thoughts may do best watching the NYT opinion video, clicking on the title above will give you a link to that.
The Social Dilemma is I think an important adjunct to this message, because Netflix brings in several of the architects of social media as we know it…and much of what they say overlaps and provides some additional context for Mr. Lanier’s views as expressed in his book. The downside is that there are short dramatized scenes interspersed with the interviews. I know in our household, those turned off some viewers. I personally felt like the interview segments presented sufficiently important information and perspectives for consideration to outweigh the cheesiness of the dramatizations.
“After A Bitter Election, Can Americans Find A Way to Heal Their Divides?” Christianna Silva, NPR
We can choose how we engage with the world. We can choose to listen to what others need and what others are feeling and not let those differences threaten us. We can choose to react calmly and kindly when someone has different needs or beliefs. We can choose to prioritize truths over unfounded or unsubstantiated statements. Many of the contributors to my recommended reading on social media point to the ways in which engagement with these platforms has decreased the civility of our interactions and our receptiveness to differing points of view, but this article gives another vision, one in which we choose to listen to each other with empathy and improve the way we act with one another accordingly.
