4.3 How does it make you feel?
‘Just use your head, don’t be rash about it, think it through’.
Questioning and evaluating are powerful skills. You can use these skills to check how trustworthy the information you hear or see is, and to reveal some of the hidden influences that you are exposed to everyday. You can also use these skills to help you change how you relate to others on social media.
Tips: Stop, check, think before you act
Before you act, stop and ask yourself some simple questions:
- Have you checked the information is correct?
- Think – How does this information make you feel?
- Are you acting with your heart, or with your head?
- What are the consequences of taking this action for others and for you?
- Will your actions help to solve the problem at stake?
These tips are adapted from the Fact NI toolkit.
Activity 12: What would you do?
If you got a message like one of these anonymously, what would you do? And which one do you think gives you the most choices? Choose one of the following responses.
- You hear on social media that the police have just arrested a young lad you know. He’s being held in the local police station and he’s in a bad way. What do you do?
- You hear that young people in a neighbouring community have got funding for their youth centre and your community has got nothing. You are angry and frustrated. What do you do?
- Someone has been offensive to you on social media and is saying hateful things about you and your community. What do you do?
In the next session you will explore ways to come up with alternative possibilities, to help you decide what to do in the situations you face.
Activity 13: Time to reflect
Before you finish this session, think again about how you make decisions in difficult situations. What have you learned and what would do differently now that you developed these new skills?
OpenLearn - Why riot? Community, choices, aspirations 
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