Amid the surge of media coverage following Charlie Kirk’s assassination on Sept. 10, I asked what many fellow Iowans must have wondered: Am I helpless, or can I help our country come through this?
I searched for answers in our national media in the following days. Panels offered diagnoses of what’s led us here: young men struggling, the media’s incendiary language, the divide between left and right widening, online communities radicalizing. Throughout the noise, the only answer I seemed to find was a vapid piece of advice to turn down the temperature on both sides.
What does that even mean? I wondered. For someone with as quiet an online presence as myself, there was no temperature to turn down. My house is clean, I thought. I’m an everyday Iowan. I work, then return home to evenings with my family. I don’t post or comment online. In my extra hours, I’d sit, like many of us, swiping and scrolling, an observer on the sidelines. I’d peruse comment sections, Reddit threads, Instagram Reels. I’d see the most extreme ideas, the screamers, stepping up to bat in the arena of public discourse, those opinions being floated to the top of my timeline by algorithms meant to keep us all looking.
I sat with the uncomfortable feeling of our country in the days following the killing, and subsequently felt an obvious truth arise inside myself — that being a passive participant in the public online discourse actively enables the companies that brought us to this dark place. We all know the truth — that our eyes are a product for Facebook and Instagram to sell. When we log on throughout the day, each of us becomes a willing participant in this social decay. Each of us attends a game that’s dividing our nation. And so, four days after Kirk’s assassination, I opted to delete my Facebook and Instagram accounts — permanently.
My decision wasn’t made lightly. As a business owner, I could think of at least 10 reasons not to do it: I could lose customers; I wouldn’t know when friends’ and clients’ birthdays are; how would I shop Marketplace or reach customers? These and other reasons kept me using Meta’s products for years. However, this time my convictions ran deeper than money. And maybe, in the long run, I’d be more connected to the real world.
I took accountability for my small part, but we all must choose, daily — who and what we embolden in our world, through our time and money spent. Will we choose to embolden the billionaires whose pocketbooks are lined by the sensationalist videos we watch online? Or will we choose to embolden ourselves and our communities by turning from what’s unhealthy for us? We each have the choice to continue down our habitual path or make a change. That change starts with ownership, and a pivot from what feels automatic. If we don’t each look inward, if we don’t each do something, I fear for who or what comes after Charlie.
Clay Whisler is a small-business owner in Washington.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: I deleted my Facebook and Instagram. They’re poisoning our discourse. | Opinion
Reporting by Clay Whisler / Des Moines Register
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
