After all the talk about an arrest this morning, I felt it was necessary to voice my opinion about the attention social media gives to unimportant topics. The problem is this: the more we tweet, post, blog, and simply talk about the topics we don't like seeing in the media, the more attention they get. If you don't think a 19-year old male pop star is important enough to receive attention, don't give him attention. At all.
I found it sad that on Sunday night a certain professional football player from the Pacific Northwest was "trending" higher on Facebook than a shooting at a university in Pennsylvania. "What shooting?!" You may be asking... Exactly. Our focus has narrowed in on issues not really all that dangerous or important to the country or world as a whole. Instead we focus on silly things like a former Disney star's insane VMA performance. Even if you're tweeting about how repulsed you are by her twerking, you are still giving her the attention she wants. The new goal for people in the limelight is to trend. That's all they want is to have their name everywhere and for people to constantly be talking about them.
The solution to this problem is simple: don't talk about them. Just don't. Every time you do, you're only advancing the problem. Instead, talk about serious issues in the world that need immediate attention and potentially put your fellow citizens at risk. I challenge you to stop yourself any time you begin talking about an issue that really isn't all that important in regards to the sake of our community and instead talk about issues in your community, state, country, and the world. If everyone begins doing this we can combat this problem one conversation at a time.
In case it wasn't obvious, I purposefully referred to people in this post by what they are known for and not their name. You, as a reader, probably still know who I'm talking about but I did not bring attention to them specifically by name. This is a good place to start solving this issue.
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