social media

[NewCreation435]

I recently decided to delete or deactivated a number of social media sites. It just seems like all there is is people arguing and being negative on it. I feel like after I am on social media it makes me feel drained and grumpy, particularly during an election year where everyone seems to have very polarized opinions. It seems pointless to point out flaws in thinking because people just end up getting angry. I actually had a pastor friend defriend me four years ago during the last election cycle.
Even with my pastor doing a daily dose message on social media it doesn't seem worth it to keep it active. How do you feel about social media? Do you post political views on social media? If so, is it to try and convince someone of something?

 

[Lamb]

I am mainly on Facebook (I don't do Twitter, Instagram, etc) to keep in touch with family and some friends. I have a good number of "friends" there but I could seriously cut that number down to probably 100 of just family and the closest friends and be satisfied.

I'm finding that this year is the worst so far of people's emotions getting the best of them. They are vicious to the point of my wondering if they're seriously having a nervous breakdown. I will be going on less and less as the political elections get closer and will use the feature that allows me hide a friend for 30 days if he/she is too aggressive/belligerent. I don't see myself leaving Facebook because I enjoy seeing cousins I've never met all over the world and being able to encourage them from afar.

 

[tango]

I've unfollowed so many people that the "hide all from" function doesn't even operate any more.

If someone posts political stuff that's so lamely argued that you barely have to skim the text to see the glaring holes, chances are I'm going to unfollow them. There's no point trying to reason online, it's about posturing and proving to your tribe that you're on the right side of everything.

As far as possible I encourage our church to put everything on our web site. If people want it on social media as well that's fine, but it's nice to have a place where you can get it without being on social media and also nice to have a site that won't take it down because it upset somebody.

 

[NewCreation435]

I am mainly on Facebook (I don't do Twitter, Instagram, etc) to keep in touch with family and some friends. I have a good number of "friends" there but I could seriously cut that number down to probably 100 of just family and the closest friends and be satisfied.

I'm finding that this year is the worst so far of people's emotions getting the best of them. They are vicious to the point of my wondering if they're seriously having a nervous breakdown. I will be going on less and less as the political elections get closer and will use the feature that allows me hide a friend for 30 days if he/she is too aggressive/belligerent. I don't see myself leaving Facebook because I enjoy seeing cousins I've never met all over the world and being able to encourage them from afar.

Staying in contact with family and friends was my reason also for staying on facebook, but I found that even though many of the people whoa re on my friends list are on there they don't generally interact with me on a regular basis at all. Maybe I need to cut out watching much of the news as well.

 

[Lamb]

Staying in contact with family and friends was my reason also for staying on facebook, but I found that even though many of the people whoa re on my friends list are on there they don't generally interact with me on a regular basis at all. Maybe I need to cut out watching much of the news as well.

Stop watching the news. You'll be much happier!

I will be doing what Tango does and unfollowing a lot of people over the next months up until elections. Facebook has no filter to block out political stuff but it would be better if it had it.

 

[tango]

Stop watching the news. You'll be much happier!

I will be doing what Tango does and unfollowing a lot of people over the next months up until elections. Facebook has no filter to block out political stuff but it would be better if it had it.

Sometimes it can be really difficult to maintain respect for people, when they speak a lot about loving everybody and then get online and start posting some seriously nasty stuff about people who don't vote the way they do.

Even staying in contact with people gets more difficult as more and more of the daily feed is deluged with political garbage, sponsored posts and, oh yes, here's a post from a friend you might like to see among all the drivel.

 

[Lamb]

Along the lines of what tango wrote, I've noticed more and more that if liberals even suspect that you're conservative they will imply negative intent no matter what you write (in my experience with friends and family on Facebook). One friend of mine wrote something that in no way was negative but someone came in and started in on him as if he was evil and yet she was the one spouting all kinds of evil toward him. If you look at what he actually wrote, it was encouraging. She assumed he was going somewhere with his post and jumped on it...wrongly. That happens so often now and I wish people would stop. Look at what people write and give them the benefit of the doubt. PLUS don't lump everyone into one tidy category. Not all conservatives are against universal healthcare, not all conservatives like Trump, etc...

 

[tango]

Not all conservatives are against universal healthcare, not all conservatives like Trump, etc...

That's where you're wrong. If you're conservative it logically follows that you agree with 100% of everything said and done, ever, by anyone who coul be considered conservative by any count. It also logically follows that you disagree with 100% of everything that reasonable, rational people liberals ever say and do.

On a more serious note, it would really nice if people could get away from that line of thinking. It would also be nice if there was wider acceptance that disagreement with a proposed solution isn't necessarily disagreement with the fundamental goal - it might just be that people have different ideas on how to achieve comparable aims.

And then there's the issue of the so-called "dog whistle", which I suspect may have triggered the event you describe. Take something that's encouraging, figure out what kind of secret "dog whistle" it must be (because, you know, conservatives were Wrong to elect Trump and therefore must be Wrong about everything else) and uncover the sinister racist/homophobic/otherwise-bigoted callout that lurks underneath a perfectly innocent encouraging post.

 

[Lazy Suesun]

I wouldn't join Facebook due to its privacy violations. And Twitter has people leaving in droves due to the extremist views of its owner and board. It's pretty sorry when Twitter thinks to try to ban POTUS due to Twitter's political views.
It's a social media site. How can the owner, or its board, think to express an intolerance for political adversaries?

Besides that, SM doesn't make any sense to me. Besides leading people to self-isolate well prior to C~19, the anonymity of the Net naturally invites abuse and dishonesty. Being social hiding behind a monitor, while sharing deeply personal things, and after registering with all the information one would normally keep private. Maybe there's a reason why SM appeals to a certain age demographic.
Leading young people to vacate what would normally be private in order to be popular.

Edited: I forgot to add this tidbit I learned from my cousin the other day. Twitter now requires a cell phone number for new registrants. They send a code to the phone to complete the registration.
Besides all the robo-calls that would ensue, if someone is political, as my cousin is for example, imagine Liberal Twitter higher ups having that information. BLM Tweets, ANTIFA Tweets. Yikes.

 

[tango]

That's easy.... it's not that hard to buy a burner phone if you really want to stay anonymous.

For the longest time I kept a burner phone on hand so that visitors from abroad would at least have a basic cellphone they could use that wouldn't cost them a fortune in international roaming rates. It's still in a drawer somewhere, but long since dead because we didn't have any international visitors for a few months and it timed out.