The Last Good Thing About Social Media

Plus, a "Dad Truths" outtake, and two great music books!

Social media is a hellscape. I think we can all agree on that.

For all the positives it was supposed to bring to the world—the ease of human connection, the speed of breaking news, the unprecedented and unfiltered (maybe not on Instagram) access to both people and information, funny memes about why parenting sucks—it’s been flooded with toxicity and harassment and mis/disinformation. The promise of the technology has ultimately created more problems than it’s probably worth.

But there’s one thing that social media remains good for, and, as a parent who frequently complains about raising my kids partially because I’m hoping I’m not the only one struggling, I’ve leaned on it for years:

SOLIDARITY!

Finding others with shared experiences, similar challenges and struggles, with whom one can communicate and empathize with and complain and vent is a wonderful thing, and social media allows us to connect with those people no matter their location or circumstances.

Recently, I posted something—about my life and my struggles with my son’s ADHD—to Threads (@dadandburied) and, even after all these years with a good-sized audience for my nonsense, I was shocked at the size of the response I received.