Member-only story
Social Media Makes You Worse
You can be an ethical person while being extremely logged on. You can also subsist on junk food and still be in decent cardiovascular condition. All you have to do is go to heroic lengths to look after your health in every other respect. Of course, even then you’re still facing unfriendly odds. Wouldn’t it be simpler to just eat healthier to begin with?
Morality is a skill, like playing basketball. To get good at it, you have to practice. You learn the basic movements, reflexes, and reactions. You can’t specifically train for every possible scenario on the court. But if you master the underlying skills and learn how to respond to a range of possible surprises, you’ve set yourself up to perform well in an actual game.
The fundamental skills of morality are virtues: self-awareness, moderation, cool-headedness, and a flair for handling unexpected issues on the fly. Everyone has the capacity to incorporate virtues into their personality. But just like playing basketball, you need to practice in order to do it well. When you find yourself in a new situation, you need to have already honed your sense of how you, other people, and the world in general operate. That way, you can improvise an effective response.
You need discipline and focus to be able to apply that lens under all circumstances. When you’re in the thick of it, it takes follow-through…