I have almost reached the tipping point of social media to where I simply walk away from 90% of my contacts.
I know, I know - many of you do not have the darn thing at all, or have advised me in the past to get rid of it. And to a large extent, I have tried to moderate the amount of time I spend on it - and succeeded. But one thing that has consistently remained with me is my unwillingness to "ignore" or "unfriend" people.
(To the uninitiated: "ignore" is where you no longer see their postings. "Unfriend" is where you no longer follow them at all.)
I like people. I do not want people to thing ill of me. And so I tend to keep them on my list. I try to overlook opinions I disagree with or posts I do not consider appropriate. But more and more I am finding myself highly aggravated by what I read people posting.
The problem - as people far more clever than I have posted - is that the InterWeb in general and social media in particular is not a place to make an argument or have a discussion. In many ways it has become the Western Front of World War I, where artillery shells are fired back and forth and occasionally people lead charges across no-man's land which ultimately result in nothing. It has become a vast, pock-marked landscape devoid of any life.
Oddly enough, some of the people that I hang on to are in fact not really any part of my life any more - have not been for years. In a sense this is the microcosm of the issue of social media: rediscovering relationships which one may have had years ago or for years only to find out that you have both moved significantly apart. In fact, you may very well be strangers in every sense of the word except for a relationship that has become nothing but a hollow shell.
And as I have come to understand, is this not in fact something which can ultimately limit us all? If we are only concerned with the opinions of those that no longer matter to us we are no longer self directed but directed by their will. We have become servants of that which is nothing but the greatest of all straw men, Public Opinion.
So what do to?
I have started at the only place I know: by beginning to systematically hide the posts of anyone whom I know longer have an active, on-going relationship with. It is not a lot, to be sure. But I will start with 10. And then another 10. And perhaps over time, I will begin to rediscover the power of being an individual instead of a servant to demands I can never achieve.
Some People change over the course of their lives. I’ve run into old friends that are exactly the same goofs I remember them as and realize again why I loved them. I have family members I’ve known all my life, and the people I grew up with years ago are foreigners today. That in turn has changed me. I am not the man I was either. So far I think that has been a good thing - but I can think of a lot of past acquaintances that would disagree.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a good plan. I have found that the more people I hide or unfollow, the more my friends list shrinks. Works for me.
ReplyDeleteIt might be related to the fact that I am often not on for several days.
I try to be a little more 'social' since I found several of my brothers also have fb.
Have a blessed week.
We all change to some extent or other, Glen. My experience has turned out to be much like yours, friends and family that have changed over the years (or what is left of the family I see. Odd how after time I see so few of them). And yes, you and I have changed as well. The output of all these changes is that we have become different people that share a connection - or maybe shared one, once upon a time. Strangely enough, I find that I am valuing peace more and more above contentious relationships.
ReplyDeleteLinda, if it were not for my family and my activities, I probably would abandon FB altogether. I am finding that my reaction to other's posts are becoming less and less worth the connections.
ReplyDelete