Kia ora koutou katoa.

We live in such a connected world due to the advances in technology we have seen in the past 10-20 years. This should bring us closer to our loved ones, allow us to make connections across the globe, to share information with others in different countries to solve problems and develop new technology and medicines to make the world a better place.

We see this happening with Covid 19 where a number of virologists and epidemiologists are sharing information to develop a vaccine or share best strategies to avoid the spread.

We see this happening with climate change where we hear from a variety of scientists and activists about what is happening to our world and what we can do to make a difference. 

All this information can help us create a great understanding of how our world works and allow us to make improvements.

This however needs to be balanced by absorbing a wide variety of sources of reputable information, evaluating and critically thinking about the information and forming our own judgements.

Social media is also a great way of keeping in touch and informed. It can play quite a dark and sinister part of society when used negatively. We saw this in the Christchurch Mosque attacks on March 15th 2019 where the gunman live streamed his massacre on facebook. We were again reminded on Tuesday of this harmful use by the self-harming images on the social media platforms of Tik Tok, Facebook, Instagram etc.

In schools we are finding increasing levels of inappropriate use of cell phones particularly through social media. Students are sending hurtful messages to one another at all hours of the day. It is also easy for messages sent through our phones to be misinterpreted. An added capital letter, a poorly chosen emoji can change the tone of a message. All students, and in fact adults,  should be taking greater care with how we are communicating online. Be respectful, be kind. 

Nothing beats a good old fashioned face to face conversation. Lets see more of this happening!

Nga mihi nui

Marcus Cooper