The Evils of Social Media

I do not actually do a lot of social media. I have my blog, a Facebook account, a LinkedIn account, and a Twitter account.

I check the Twitter account probably less than once a month. I'm just not a fan of it. I can't remember the last time I looked at my LinkedIn account.

My blog I consider my personal space. If you want to read it, you come here. It's not in your face or anything. I think it is the best way to air my feelings and to say things I want to say. If you come here and read it and don't like it, you don't have to remove from your newsfeed or anything. You just don't come back. If you don't like my politics or my religion or whatever, then simply move along. I don't need you to tell me how awful I am and that you're never coming back to my blog. Just go. I know of people who no longer read me for whatever reasons, and while I initially wondered what the problem was, after a while I no longer missed them. I doubt they miss me.

Facebook is difficult. I look at it but don't post a lot. I read what other people are doing, although in the last three years more and more people have been "unfollowed" than I ever thought I would think about doing that to, because they've proven to be racist bigots in their political posts. Sometimes I go back and re-follow everyone, but then my FB page fills up with some pretty vile stuff, so off they go again.

I've also blocked a lot of people I don't even know because I saw something they wrote in comments on a newsfeed page. Yikes. Some folks are just downright nasty.

My point, and I do have one, is that there is someone on the other end of your nasty email or your nasty post or your nasty feed or your nasty blog or whatever it is. Your words might be breaking someone's heart. 

I don't write nasty blog posts. I might write that I disagree with the current administration and I wish things were different, but that's opinion, not nasty.

Nasty is calling the Obamas monkeys, or saying that black people get what they deserve, or saying that the Superbowl half-time show was unAmerican because it had Latinos in it (I saw several people say this. Good grief.). Sorry, but we're a melting pot. You get to have your opinion but I don't have to read it the next time, because I may have unfollowed you if you say things like that in a particularly vile way.

I have always been a nice person and tried to play nice and by the rules. It is true what they say, that nice girls finish last. I'm ok with last. I can sleep at night, I don't have to worry which lie I told to which person, and I know in my heart that I've done everything I can to ensure growth and prosperity not only for myself and my family but for others. I know that I used my forum on the newspaper to try to educate and promote goodness and kindness. I can't help it if people could not or did not read or comprehend. (Would newspaper writing be social media? Maybe so. Never thought of it that way before.)

Anyway, the nasty words people write to others can leave hurt feelings, broken hearts, and total dismay in their wake. I presume the people who write these things don't care. Political correctness, after all, has become a bad thing, but I'm talking more about manners and graciousness in general. You know, being polite, which is something that many United States citizens are not very good at.

You, dear reader, always welcome to read what I write and to disagree. That doesn't mean I have to approve of your disagreement or that I will leave your comment on my blog. It doesn't mean you have to follow me on Facebook - you're welcome to unfollow me or even block me and unfriend me if you want. That is your right.

But please do remember that words have consequences. If what you say might hurt someone's feelings, then is there a reason to say it at all?

I would like a nice world. This current one, where to me it feels like bullying and meanness is the rule of the day, is pretty scary.

Some of the rules I grew up with:

• Mind your manners.
• Play nice with the ball.
• Be kind always, because it is harder to be kind than to be mean. Mean is the easy way out.
• Find your inner goodness, let it shine.
• If you have to stand up for something, stand up for something that makes the world better, not tears it down.

I wonder what happened to those soft little rules.