Writing By Prin

The Impact of Social Media on Groupthink and Herd Mentality

In an age where social media dominates our daily interactions, it’s crucial to recognize its impact on groupthink and herd mentality. These happen when people conform to the opinions and behaviors of a group, and it is easy to find examples of this online on a daily basis – no matter how old you are. Much of it happens without critical thinking – a topic for another day maybe, if we want to discuss the impact of education not promoting true independent thought. While social media connects us in unprecedented ways, it also fosters environments where veiled interactions and anonymity can lead to harmful behaviors and unchecked instability.

The Dark Side of Anonymity: Enabling Sociopathic Tendencies

Social media platforms allow individuals to express themselves freely, and that should be a good thing. However, this often happens without needing to reveal true identities. This is the core of many negative online interactions. This anonymity can be a double-edged sword. On one hand, it offers a safe space for those who may feel marginalized or afraid to voice their opinions openly. On the other hand, it can also enable sociopathic tendencies and untreated mental instability. Even worse, people will express fringe sentiments and find people of similar instability and suddenly, we have a loud voice of unstable voices who feel very valid. When people feel validated by the approval of others—through likes, shares, or comments—they may be more likely to post extreme or harmful content.

The lack of accountability in anonymous interactions can lead to a disregard for the consequences of one’s actions. This behavior is particularly concerning when it comes to bullying and harassment, as individuals feel emboldened to say things online that they would never say face-to-face.For example, I find that TikTok, X (formerly Twitter), and some Facebook groups attract people with fake accounts, empty profiles, or general “troll” starter kit behavior. They comment or reply for the sake of creating a misunderstanding, often name-calling, and they aren’t there to read, learn, or discourse. They are simply there to pass the time trolling other people and destroying content by taking over a thread or topic. I’ve seen people troll all kinds of topics, so it does not have to be anything contentious. Some people thrive off of the attention they get online, even if it is from strangers getting angry with them.

The Alarming Statistics: Youth, Social Media, and Bullying

Research highlights the significant impact of social media on young people, particularly in relation to bullying. According to the Cyberbullying Research Center, approximately 37% of young people aged 12-17 have been bullied online. Of those, 30% have experienced it more than once. This trend is not just a fleeting issue; it has lasting effects on mental health, with victims of cyberbullying being more likely to experience depression, anxiety, and even suicidal thoughts. Throughout the school year, I see stories of young minds simply not grasping the damage they are doing. It makes you question parenting, but it also drives the point home about groupthink – we are all doing this so it must be normal. That idea is dangerous in a young mind, susceptible to influence.

The rise in social media usage has also been linked to a decline in face-to-face interactions, which can exacerbate feelings of isolation and loneliness. A study published in the American Journal of Health Behavior found that increased social media use was associated with higher rates of depression and anxiety among adolescents. The study also noted that the more time young people spend online, the less time they spend engaging in healthy, real-world interactions.

Years ago, my oldest did a school-based study on social media and bullying. It was more of a poll research study for a class project. I always remember how easy it is for young people to feel that inappropriate things are okay to do, because they’ve almost always been on the receiving side of inappropriate social media interactions. In other words, it is not always the intent to bully or be mean, but an inherent retaliation that has become normalized by people all over the world – sadly.

Real-Life Consequences: Social Media’s Negative Impact

The dangers of social media are not just theoretical; they have real-world consequences. Consider the case of Amanda Todd, a Canadian teenager who took her own life in 2012 after enduring years of cyberbullying. Amanda was tormented online by a stranger who persuaded her to share intimate photos, which were then used to blackmail and publicly shame her. Despite changing schools and seeking help, Amanda could not escape the relentless online harassment, ultimately leading to her tragic death.

Another example is the spread of misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Social media platforms were flooded with false information about the virus, vaccines, and treatments, leading to widespread confusion and, in some cases, harmful behaviors. A study by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism found that misinformation about COVID-19 was more likely to be shared on social media than accurate information. Even if you have an opinion based on valid information, it stands to reason that no one wanted to hear anything from you about Covid unless you agreed with them. We can all agree 2020 was a rough year, but that’s about it.

Fostering a Culture of Critical Thinking and Responsible Sharing

In light of these issues, it is crucial to encourage a culture of critical thinking and responsible sharing on social media. Before posting or sharing content, take a moment to fact-check the information and consider the potential impact of your words. Avoid jumping on the bandwagon of radical or extremist opinions, and instead, seek out diverse perspectives to form a more balanced view.

I try very hard to keep people I disagree with in my friend lists and mutuals online – it is valuable insight. It’s so important to understand perspectives that upset me or unnerve me, because it allows me to process my own convictions more steadily. When it comes to trolls online, I have found that many of them resort to insults as soon as they are called out, and it’s a great opportunity to engage a troll who won’t back down by sharing facts and information that another person may see. That may help them follow a better rabbit hole of data. By promoting thoughtful and respectful online interactions, we can counteract the negative effects of groupthink and herd mentality. Social media has the power to bring people together, but it also has the potential to divide us. Let’s use it wisely and responsibly to foster a more informed, compassionate, and connected society.

Poem: Ruminate

Ruminate by Princess Yvonne Dumas

Sometimes I like to sit in silence

To ruminate about my day

And wonder if perhaps I’ve fallen

Far away from dreams of yesterday.

Am I forging forward on a path,

Dark and thicket-drowned?

Am I pushing beyond the storms,

An ambivalent buoy right offshore?

And yet, it’s possible that I may be

Something more to you than me.

Now there’s a thought,

New as the day,

Never to have entertained me before.

Sometimes I like to sit in silence

To ruminate about my life

And wonder if perhaps I’ve touched you

And not once lived a day of truth.

The Power of SEO Content: Boost Credibility and Generate Leads for Businesses

In the busy digital world of today, where every business strives to establish an online presence, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) content emerges as a powerful tool. Not only does it increase visibility on search engine result pages (SERPs), but it also plays a pivotal role in increasing credibility and generating leads for businesses. Gone are the days of typewriters and of doing things “because we’ve always done it this way.” We have truly arrived at the age of keeping up with SEO content for the benefit of your business.

In 2012, I began to work from home after leaving my career in education. I had already put in about a decade of freelancing, and I can tell you one thing – SEO trends and techniques are constantly changing. With the advent of AI content management, SEO has evolved within the last two years and impacts how businesses promote themselves. SEO content is no longer an easy promotional blog about anything you want – SEO content has to come with a professional strategy in place.

Let’s delve deeper into the benefits that SEO content brings to the table.

Enhancing Credibility:

In the realm of online business, credibility is paramount. Consumers are more likely to trust and engage with brands that appear reputable and authoritative. SEO content, when written effectively, can significantly enhance a business’s credibility in several ways.

Quality Content Screams Authority: Search engines prioritize high-quality, relevant content. By consistently publishing informative and valuable content optimized for relevant keywords, businesses can become industry leaders and authorities within their content.
Building Trust with Visibility: Appearing at the top of search engine results gives potential customers trust about your business and services. When a business consistently ranks well for relevant search queries, it signals to potential customers that the business is reliable and credible.
Establishing Leadership: Through strategic content creation, businesses can showcase their expertise and thought leadership within their industry. By addressing common issue points, providing solutions, and offering valuable insights, businesses can become trusted sources of information, further bolstering their credibility.

Generating Leads:

Beyond credibility, SEO content serves as a great tool for generating leads, driving traffic to a business’s website, and converting visitors into prospects.

Targeted Traffic Online: By optimizing content for relevant keywords, businesses attract users actively seeking information related to their products or services. This targeted traffic is more likely to convert into leads as these users are already interested in what the business has to offer.
Effective Conversion Funnels: SEO content can be strategically aligned with different stages of the buyer’s journey, from awareness to consideration and decision-making. By providing valuable content, businesses can guide them through the conversion funnel more effectively.
Capturing Long-Term Opportunities: Unlike traditional advertising, which ceases to generate leads once the campaign ends, SEO content continues to attract organic traffic over time. By creating content that remains relevant and valuable, businesses can generate leads without ongoing investment.

Benefits of SEO Content

The benefits of SEO content extend far beyond mere visibility on search engine result pages. By enhancing credibility and driving lead generation, SEO content empowers businesses to thrive in the competitive digital landscape. Through strategic content creation, businesses can establish themselves as trusted authorities, attract targeted traffic, and convert visitors into valuable leads. In an era where online presence is synonymous with success, harnessing the power of SEO content is no longer an option.

AI Content Management: How to Use OpenAI for SEO Content

AI Content Management

AI content management refers to the use of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and techniques in managing and organizing digital content. It involves utilizing AI algorithms and tools to automate various aspects of content creation, curation, organization, and delivery. This blog is an example of what AI content management could do for you.

AI content management professionals process content in different formats such as text, images, audio, and video. This provides a reliable quality to the SEO content for a business website, blog, or news article. Increasing the accuracy of information allows for freelance writers, like myself, to output content in greater quantities with more reliable results.

How to Use OPEN AI

You can learn how to use Open AI for many personal and professional goals. As a freelance writer for local businesses and industries, I have found that artificial intelligence isn’t taking content jobs away from writers. It’s actually making it possible for humans to produce content more effectively and efficiently.

Content Creation: AI can generate content based on predefined rules, templates, or data inputs. It can automatically write articles, product descriptions, or social media posts, saving time and effort for content creators. Human writers and editors can adjust this content for tone and aesthetic purposes.
Content Curation: AI algorithms can curate and recommend relevant content based on user preferences, historical data, and contextual analysis. It can personalize content recommendations for individuals or target specific audience segments. In other words, it can truly laser focus on what you need to publish to achieve the results you’re trying to get.
Metadata Extraction: AI can automatically extract metadata from content, such as keywords, tags, or descriptions, to enhance searchability and categorization. This saves freelance SEO writers so much time and allows less experienced business professionals to follow their SEO data.
Content Organization and Content Enhancement: AI techniques like image recognition and text analysis can improve content quality by identifying and correcting errors, suggesting improvements, or enhancing visuals.
Workflow Automation: AI can automate repetitive or mundane content management tasks, such as content distribution, scheduling, translation, or localization. This frees up time for content managers to focus on higher-level strategic activities. Many of my clients now benefit from more interesting topics or niche details in blogs and website pages, because AI enables writers to plan very far ahead with topics. This automates strategy!
Content Security and Compliance: AI can be used to identify and mitigate potential security risks, plagiarism, or copyright violations in digital content. It can also help enforce compliance with regulatory requirements or brand guidelines.

How do you use Open AI? It’s as simple as typing in questions and prompts with the keywords and topics you wish to explore in your content. While anyone can create a free account and play around with OpenAI, I suggest hiring a freelance writer to join your SEO content and artificial intelligence content management team.

SEO Content and Artificial Intelligence

AI content management aims to streamline and enhance the content lifecycle, from creation to distribution, by leveraging intelligent algorithms and automation. It empowers businesses to deliver more relevant, engaging, and personalized content experiences to their audiences while improving operational efficiency. This creates a tangible bridge between SEO content and artificial intelligence that makes content management more accessible than ever.

Being an AI Content Manager

Being an AI content manager involves working with advanced technologies and playing a pivotal role in the creation, organization, and optimization of digital content. At first, I was a bit concerned when AI crashed into the content development scene last year. I had some of my SEO clients drop services or decrease projects. Concerning! After some great conversations with other colleagues, we realized it was important to wait this out until people began to realize that they still needed people. And they do. For the last six months or so, clients have returned seeking different results and more personal touches to the AI. Enter AI content management!

Embracing AI Technologies means that content strategy and planning is a collaborative effort with content creators, marketing teams, and stakeholders to align with business goals. Using OPEN AI to find reliable content data frees up the mental bandwidth behind SEO content development. I leverage AI algorithms to curate and recommend relevant content to specific target audiences. I ensure proper tagging, categorization, and metadata extraction from content using AI techniques. This improves content discoverability, searchability, and enhances user experience.

As an AI content manager, I stay up to date with the latest advancements in AI technologies, content management practices, and industry trends. I continuously explore new AI tools, techniques, and best practices to improve content strategies and outcomes. Artificial intelligence is actually a creative enhancement.

Overall, being an AI content manager involves a blend of creative thinking, technical expertise, and strategic decision-making. You harness the power of AI to optimize content processes, deliver engaging experiences, and achieve business objectives in the ever-evolving digital landscape. Need SEO content and AI content management? Shoot me a message! I’m happy to help!

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Poem: Two Years I Lived

For two years, I lived without you,

Your smile fading into the past,

Countering notions that you’d last

Much longer in my mind than here.

For two years, you haven’t been here,

A total disappearance from me,

A broken promise about an unfailing thee

Throughout my years to come.

For two years, you left me behind

In this floating stardust of a world,

As your soul through the ether twirled

Without me able to dance with you.

For two years, I survived our memories

While the echo of your laughter

Has run away from me further and faster

Than anyone we knew could replicate.

For two years, I wondered why,

And found myself daydreaming of time

That was taken from you in your prime,

As I find more grays in my own hair.

For two years, I lived without you

And with you at the same time somehow,

A collection of thoughts upon my brow,

Contradicting grief with reminiscences.

For two years, I tell myself to go on

And do what you didn’t get to explore,

That maybe in one or several score,

I’ll have so much to tell you again.

Princess Yvonne Dumas – March 6, 2023

Dedicated to my brother, Henry Alexander Dumas

Poem: My Moment

Far into the night of my childhood,

There waited the daylight of my wisdom.

As I stumbled, crawled, and cried,

A pillar of strength waited to become me.

I had no objective when I arrived,

And neither did you.

We landed.

We paused.

We stayed.

Far into the nights of my womanhood,

The crone in me awaits my arrival.

With creases of a life lived on her face,

She plays the piano with painful bones.

She has no intention to leave,

And neither do I.

Neither do you.

But, we will.

And when my moment arrives,

I will have lived a life fulfilled.

-Princess Yvonne Dumas – January 13, 2023

The Oxford comma – yes, yes, and yes

About ten to fifteen years ago, another writer posted online about their dismay when editing writers and realizing they had not caught onto the anti-Oxford comma update. This is someone I grew up with in Jersey City and he was very intelligent. I had seen the trend happen on a few sites, and I had a few freelancing assignments that required the fateful comma drop. I almost always disagreed and made an editor do it for me. Maybe my youthful lack of wisdom was taking a stand. It felt as if people heard a new rule and did not process any logic while obeying it.

Most of my writing includes the Oxford comma. Every once in a while, you’ll find something from me that lacks it, and it’s a result of the debate described in the above paragraph. For a long time, I did not know what to do – use it or not use it. One time, I had an editor get upset when they had to correct my Oxford commas for the third time. It was not long before I left that specific assignment. I do not do well with entities that disrespect language and clarity in communication.

I am “flowery” and wordy enough in my writing. I’m a poet. English already has many words with double entendre and confusing translations into other languages. This battle against a simple punctuation annoyed me then and annoys me now. Maybe it bothers me more since so many people who are anti-Oxford will get super condescending against those of us who still use it. It’s really become the dinosaur-tracking tool of the literary world!

What is the Oxford comma?

The Oxford comma is simply a comma – the punctuation that separates items in a list or adds clarity within a complex sentence. The Oxford comma often serves an itemizing function. I’ll give you a few examples below:

The car is big, new, and blue.

The second comma is the Oxford comma.

My family loves music from The Doors, The Police, and the Beatles.

Jane, Bob, and I are going to the fair, restaurant, and home tonight.

Those who prefer a lack of Oxford comma insist that the meaning of the sentence does not change – that the Oxford interrupts the flow of the voice. They would want the above sentences to look more like this:

The car is big, new and blue. My family loves music from The Doors, The Police and The Beatles. Jane, Bob and I are going to the fair, restaurant and home tonight.

When it comes to simple sentences, they are right. Not much changes with or without the Oxford comma. However, I would argue that a tiny tidbit of confusion has entered the conversation when we revisit the meaning of our second sentence.

My family loves music from The Doors, The Police and The Beatles. If you and I did not have common knowledge understanding about these band names, we would see this sentence and note that the “and” is missing before “The Police,” and we would conclude that there was a band going around by the name of The Police and The Beatles. This is why I use the Oxford comma. I don’t want to assume the reader’s understanding, and I definitely don’t want to create an expiration date in my writing. What do I mean by an expiration date? Well, in years to come, will it still be common knowledge to understand I meant three separate bands? Maybe. Maybe not. Punctuation adds clarity.

The part that gets me is that in proper writing – published books, fixed website pages, and other types of content platforms – we don’t usually write in simple sentences. Once you get a complex thought going, the Oxford comma can make or break the clarity of that point.

Example:

I love to eat international cuisine at home, such as, Coq au vin, Carbonara, Bandeja Paisa and Sushi with Fresh Ginger.

Without the Oxford comma, we just ruined Colombian and Japanese food while simultaneously getting a horrible tummy ache. For as long as sentences like the one above exist and can border on the ridiculous, I will always use the Oxford comma. There’s no practical purpose to enable confusion in written communication.

Use that comma! 😉

Music Monday: Meatloaf

I remember thinking I had just discovered something new and really cool when I first began playing Meatloaf’s 1993 Bat Out Of Hell II: Back into Hell album. MTV and VH1 were playing his epic music videos with all of their gothic drama and I thought myself unique. As it turned out his music was mostly a reprise from two decades prior, and my mom was quick to note I had no clue who he really was.

Between Jim Steinman’s amazing songwriting and piano-based rock, along with Meatloaf’s passionate performances, I really loved his work for a number of years in my youth. Michael Lee Aday, the man known as Meatloaf, really inspired who I became as a musician. He passed away January 20, 2022. In an oddly mystical and gothic way, I hope he’s joined Jim (died April 19, 2021) again in the afterlife and they’re making lots of great music again.

I’ll close with sharing one of my favorite Meatloaf hits (Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through) and an early acting feature by Angelina Jolie! 🙂

Sunday Night Thoughts: Labeling People

For my Sunday night thoughts, I’ve been wondering why so many people seem obsessed with labeling people on the internet. From race to religion and lifestyle choices, it seems this younger generation has influenced the popular social narratives into a state of compartmentalization. No sharing, no appreciating, no learning from one another – everything is a problem, and others have a right to tell you who and what you are without knowing anything about you. This is unstable thinking.

As someone with a very racially, ethnically, and culturally mixed background, I find myself feeling defensive from so many online arguments. I tend not to participate, but every now and then, I find myself making a statement about human anthropology or trying to find the common ground. Labeling people into categories, invented by social expectations, is weird. It’s divisive. It’s ignorant. And yet, for some reason, very educated internet users are promoting this labeling habit as if it were an act of something positive.

Anything that pushes you to reject any aspect of yourself, your ancestry, and your living remnant of human history is wrong. Stop letting people tell you or others how to identify. Nothing good is going to come from long-term labeling and compartmentalizing of human beings.

Poem: Cactus Circus

Cactus Circus by Princess Yvonne Dumas

One, two, three, you go,

Grow across the surface –

With a scorched tip nose

And a juggler’s dream come true.

Do you know the way from here?

Is it straight to the water or my fear?

Looks like you’re missing an act.

Right there, do you see it?

Surrounded by spectators,

Standing on their feet –

I see them. Do you?

Colorless clowns all looking the same,

With no form,

With no name,

Not of their own…

Sycophants of everlasting green,

Never thinking twice to be mean.

You need a splash of color,

Starting to get pale on the cheek.

Is it me you need?

I can fit just as well for the ride.

I’ll grab onto you,

And your entourage of standing lovers,

Add my crimson blood to your mask,

And you’ll say I’m part of your act.