This past weekend, awful news came out of Orlando, Fla. We found out that at a Latin night at a gay bar, a man who saw two men kissing each other opened fire using an assault weapon and a pistol, killing 50 people and injuring 53 more people. This is the worst mass shooting in the history of the United States. Worse than Columbine in 1999, than Blacksburg, Virginia in 2007, than Newton, Connecticut (Sandy Hook) in 2012.

In 2015 and 2016, there were a number of tragedies that are considered to be terrorist attacks that social media has had the chance to respond to. Some were big news like the Paris attacks and later the attack of Beirut. Others, like a mass execution that happened on June 14, 2016 in Lake Chad in Cameroon where there was a mass execution of 42 people. I saw nothing about this being talked about on social media, despite the fact that it is horrifying and there are people being displaced from their homes and struggling to meet their basic needs.

This is not an article about which attacks and tragedies are more important to pay attention to. When it comes to lives being lost, you can’t possibly say one incident was worse than another. Even one death or injury is too much, let alone 40 or 50. I want to talk about how we respond to tragedy because we have social media as our megaphone.

I am frustrated by the fact that when it comes to horrible things like a terrorist attack, our love and help only comes in the form of our thoughts and prayers. Thoughts and prayers alone are nice, but they aren’t going to change laws on their own and they aren’t going to put bandages on the wounded or give the families of the dead the shoulder to cry on that they might need or the financial help to get through this difficult time that they’re going through.

Hannah Hart, a YouTuber famous for her series My Drunk Kitchen, posted a video on June 14 in response to the mass shooting in Orlando, and she said the words that I want to say, but better.

“While thoughts and prayers are wonderful and important and good, it’s not as important as taking action.”

Hart’s video calls us, in a way, to think about what it means to care about others. I felt a twinge in my heart when she told us that she was worried we didn’t care when things like this happened or worse, that we had tricked ourselves into thinking that we cared. We can’t confuse thoughts with concrete actions because they accomplish very different things. The things that thoughts can accomplish might not be the type of action that we need right now. Those who are suffering after experiencing trauma and horror and acute danger like people who experience attacks in Orlando and around the world need more too in order get better and cope with their situation. They need more in order to start rebuilding their lives to the best of their ability.

Make no mistake, I don’t write this from a superior standpoint. I am guilty of sending my thoughts to Paris the day they experienced their tragedy in November of 2015. I reached out to my family in France, and I learned that they were okay. But I did not send money or offer a listening ear or contact anyone with political power to implore them that this can’t happen again -- do something. When the attack in Beirut happened, I didn’t feel anything. I don’t know anyone there. I thought about Beirut, but I did even less for Beirut than I did for Paris. I don’t know anyone in or near Orlando anymore and I haven’t sent any kind of tangible support to those who are suffering there.

I care about each of these places in the sense that I never want people to suffer and die unnecessarily. I don’t want people to get hurt because they’re going about their day at the marketplace or enjoying a night of dancing and music. That’s not fair and that’s not right. But I don’t care in the sense that really matters. Posting my musings or sharing a video or article related to the tragedy at hand does not mend minds, hearts or scars.

I need to do better.

We need to do better.