No-one ever told me that the true price of social media – for me – would be the slow seep of toxic-shock that comes from being hit daily with 180-character bullets of bitterness and ignorance.

I know, it’s not a promising start, but it’s the truth. So, you say, just purge your list of toxic followers/’friends’ and keep the up-beat, the funny, the wholesome.

Sure, I could do that, but I don’t need an endless diet of jokes and pet-pics either. I love the give-and-take, the cut-and-thrust of real debate, but it seems to be a lost or hidden skill. What’s covering for it right now is just repetition, shouting, venting, ranting and general misery.

I get it – it’s the information age – everyone knows everything. But it all seems so narrow.
Everyone’s a specialist in one opinion, which means that they may not read or hear anything else. Everyone’s chosen a side, all the time.

But what happens to people like me? The ones who wander over the lines to find out what’s on the other side, the ones who look at every new face as if they’re just a human being, and ask questions before we make up our minds about people – allowing them to define themselves before we pre-judge on some weird scale inside our heads. What of us?

As the whole world seems to heave with conflict, you’d imagine there’d be space for diplomats, for peace-makers, for people who can see the humanity on both sides.
When there’s a space for that, call me.