Making room for the inbetween

i’d like to start

by sharing the story of carson king

carson was a spectator at a college

football game

who could be seen in the background of a

game day broadcast

holding up a sign saying his busch light

supply

needed to be replenished conveniently

it also included his venmo username

viewers chuckled decided to pitch in

and in a few hours the story had gone

viral

carson used the money that poured in to

buy one case of beer

and then pledged to donate the rest to a

local children’s hospital

anheuser-busch and venmo agreed to match

the donation

and carson was offered a one-year supply

of bushlight

within just a few weeks a 24 year old

making a comical plea for beer money

had raised roughly three million dollars

for charity

this is a great story one with an

unassuming hero

who used an unlikely and unanticipated

platform

to do tremendous good but the story

doesn’t

end here social media posts that carson

made in high school

containing racist content were brought

to light

anheuser-busch and venmo quickly

distanced themselves

and then the journalists who discovered

the posts

lost his job after offensive social

media content from his own past

was revealed many following the story

had whiplash

from just trying to distinguish the hero

from the villain

so i’d like to ask a few questions was

the choice

that carson made when bestowed with a

windfall a good one

is it okay that prior to this act of

extraordinary generosity

he made choices that were discriminatory

and hurtful

toward others should the hospital have

declined the donation

do one’s actions in the past negate good

will

in the present i share this story

because it illustrates our basic human

tendency

to take complex information from our

environment

and break it down so it fits into simple

categories

categories like good and bad red

and blue and hero versus villain

thanks to social media we now have

unprecedented

access to the views and daily activities

of others

and this sheer amount of information can

be overwhelming

when we put people into categories we

eliminate the need to think carefully

about them

as individuals or the unique

circumstances

that give rise to their choices and

actions

but people are complex the issues that

matter most to us

are complex and what has evolved into a

collective

aversion to complexity i would argue

is contributing to some of our growing

divides

so how did we get here i’m a social

psychologist

who studies how our identities shape and

are shaped by

our interactions with others drawing on

this work

i’d like to share three insights the

first

is that social media is as much about

affirming

and communicating our identity as it is

about connecting with others

in other words it helps us figure out

and express

who we are and it’s not just what we

write

in our social media posts what we choose

to like or dislike

who we’ve included in our social network

and the groups we allow ourselves to be

linked to

all convey information about who we are

and how we want to be viewed by others

the second insight is that identity is

communicated in very simple ways on

social media

social media allows us to share our

deepest and most defining beliefs

on some platforms and 280 characters or

less

our profiles state our attitudes

preferences

and life history as concrete and

unambiguous facts

and we use hashtags a string of just a

few

letters to underscore our positions on

complex issues these structural

characteristics of social media

also contribute to the quick and

intuitive judgments we make of others

which are now more than ever based on

single social media posts

the third insight is that identity is

about who we are

but it’s also about who we are not

parked in my driveway at this very

moment

is a vehicle with the license plate duke

hater

i completed my graduate work at duke

university and

this is not a reflection of

self-loathing the proclaimed ducator

is my husband a chapel hill native and

graduate of the university of north

carolina

duke’s archrival from eight miles down

the road

as this demonstrates we sometimes affirm

important aspects of our identity by

emphasizing what it is that we are not

and this when communicated on social

media

or a license plate can facilitate the

simplification

of our identity and our social worlds

so how do we move forward

one way is by resisting the urge to

simplify

if we can stop and think twice before

unfriending an acquaintance with

differing views

or cancelling a celebrity whose actions

or social media posts

don’t align with the ideals we hold them

to

we can begin to open ourselves up to the

complexity around us

we can challenge ourselves to stop

thinking of republicans and democrats or

those who are wealthy and those living

in poverty

as one-dimensional entities that are

either entirely good

or entirely bad instead

we can do the more difficult work of

seeing others as

multi-dimensional beings who are many

things

at once we can recognize that people can

and do make mistakes but they also have

a remarkable capacity

to learn from them maintaining

meaningful relationships with people who

see the world in a very different way

can be frustrating uncomfortable and at

times

downright infuriating but if we can

challenge ourselves to acknowledge and

maybe even embrace

nuance and complexity i think we’ll be

moving in the right direction

in a universe of eithers and oars let’s

make some room for the in-between

thank you

you