SOCIAL media, as those new-age 'philosophers' are wont to tell you, isn't very social at all. It's true to a degree.
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Social media platforms, Twitter in particular, are certainly fertile ground for the darker sides of human nature to take root (and grow).
Your columnist isn't a huge fan. It's tough in a profession that encourages online interaction and the building of a digital "presence." My use of it extends only barely that far.
It's something anyone can overindulge in. Broncos star Tevita Pangai admitted earlier this year that he spent up to 12 hours a day scrolling through it.
Swimmer Emily Seebohm famously blamed a social media fixation for falling short of Olympic gold, by however many hundredths of a second, in London in 2012.
It highlights the need for people, especially athletes, to put parameters around it but, ultimately, there is no escaping it. It's the reality of the world we live in.
It's something Dragons star Tyson Frizell pointed out this week.
"It's easy to just say put it aside and don't worry about it but phones, social media, the internet is part of your everyday life," he said.
"You'd honestly be living under a rock if you didn't have any of that."
Some, particularly those not of Frizell's generation, may scoff at the claim. They're largely the same people who ask the likes of Latrell Mitchell or Blake Ferguson "why be on social media at all?"
Frizell's right though. It's the world we live in and NRL players, and indeed all professional athletes, have as much right to be on social media as anyone else.
They're not immune to all the perils of those forums, but they're entitled to the same protections and have the right not to accept certain behaviour as any of us do.
Does anyone really think Mitchell's pay packet as an NRL footballer softens the blow of racial abuse? Is he supposed to hurt any less than any other indigenous kid subjected to it?
To suggest he should simply stay off social media to avoid such attacks points the finger in the wrong direction. It's victim-blaming, plain and simple.
Social media can be valuable to an athlete. It allows them to project an image of themselves on their own terms, unfiltered by mainstream or traditional media channels.
Can it be false or concocted, sure, but no more or less than any other Joe Blow. People ask where the good news in rugby league is, social media remains the richest source of it. We wouldn't hear half the good things players do without it.
To suggest they just stay off it, that their status and pay packet precludes them from using the world's most powerful communication tool is simply denying them a platform available to the rest of us.
They can use it well or poorly, we've certainly seen athletes hauled over the coals when they've got it wrong, but they have the same rights to it as anyone else.