Social media and Dharma practice

Social media are a great means of keeping in touch with all sorts of people, but I've been reflecting how their use can from a Dharmic point of view be either wholesome or unwholesome, depending, as always in Buddhism, on the state of mind in which you post: the principle of karma states that actions performed on the basis of positive mental states lead to happiness, whereas those performed on the basis of craving, aversion and spiritual ignorance will lead to states of suffering. On the one hand, there can be a genuine desire to connect with others and enter into empathic communication with them; on the other, posting can be associated with an urge to reinforce one's own ego identity by saying "look at me!". Which of us hasn't at some time kept returning to previous Facebook posts to see how many people have responded and then compared the number of comments or "likes" we have received with those of other posts? Comparisons, as various authors throughout the centuries have pointed out, are odious, and this holds good in Buddhism as well. Any kind of comparison is a form of conceit: to say that you are better or worse than, or the same as, someone else reinforces that sense of separate selfhood which, according to Buddhism, is at the root of all of our suffering. But if we can approach social media, as anything else, with an attitude of interest, compassion and empathy, then our interactions with the worlds of Facebook and Twitter will be a boon to ourselves and other people.