I have always been a big fan of facebook and I find it an incredibly useful tool for the volunteer based projects I organize, but it can be a bit of a dumpster fire can't it? Personally, I love it for the ability to connect with people, like far flung friends and family or to share/learn abut community events or catch up on the latest cute/viral animal videos.
I also enjoy reading articles friends share, often it gives me a greater insight into the person who posted it as well as the topic presented, and typically I have opinion about what I have read. A lot of times it is easy for me to tell if typing out my personal opinion of the posted piece is worth the time...... spoiler alert, it often isn't.
A friend shared an article as well as her opinion of it and I instantly began typing out my opinion which basically was I understood the point being made, but questioned the approach. Now, I have zero ego about my own opinion, which has nothing to do with how strongly I may hold it. There are topics you would be hard pressed to change my stance on, but I am always willing to take the time to try to understand an opposing position. Of course, I am only human, so there is at least one topic my husband and I have such opposing views on that we have agreed we should never discuss it. Well I agreed, he likes to bring it up every now and then for "fun". You might wonder what heavy hitting topic it might be, but it is likely less and more controversial then you'd probably guess and has become of thing of family lore with those in the know. And this is called vague-booking on the facebook, but honestly it all boils down to a conspiracy theory... don't get me started.
To circle the wagons back, I was typing out my thoughts on this article I read and then I just stopped and deleted it. Not because I was concerned with how my friend would take it. Quite honestly, I think she would have seen some validity in what I was saying, but I just didn't want to get caught up in the potential dumpster fire that a comment section on the internet can become. That, to me, is disheartening and it makes facebook just a lot of noise, which is unfortunate.
1 comment:
I think we've taken the habit of sharing opinions too much, too easily. That is in public without taking the other points of view into consideration, without an open attitude.
I believe it is important to voice out opinions on some topics if we want to make change in the society or even to help a friend but it is more effective to do so face 2 face with empathy in order to have an effect. Voicing out on social media usually only ends up with defensive reactions and everyone digs its trenches to dig deeper in the "I am right, you are stupid and wrong"
For that reason I also keep distance for anything that might be tricky. On social media it's not worth it. If I'd like to react to a friend, I'd do it via messenger in a one2one conversation then.
Maybe I'm a coward but I really try to avoid the internet trolls.
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