Thai Buddhism and Online Social Media
Keywords:
Online Social Media, Thai Buddhism, The Buddha’s TeachingAbstract
The 21st-century world is an online social media age. Online social media brings enormous benefits but can also bring negative consequences if misused. Thailand is the same as other countries in this regard. Buddhism is the main religion in Thailand. Accordingly, Buddhism contains the Buddha’s teaching that can be interpreted and applied for well-being of mankind. The paper will discuss the Buddha’s teaching for applying to solve online social media misusing and consequently will take examples of online social media using of Thai Buddhist monks to be a model of applying Thai Buddhism in using online social media in order to be well-being in the present age. Thai Buddhist monks have started applying the Buddha’s teaching, especially Trisikkhā, which is also known as Majimāpaṭipadā (the Middle Path), in using online social media in order not to be the victim and slave of online social media. Consequently, we could call this phenomenon the application of Thai Buddhism in online social media, which is potentially useful to not only Buddhist monks but to secular Thai Buddhists as well if it has been applied appropriately for the sake of well-being.
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