Not so long ago in a galaxy not so far away human beings used to share their opinions with others about "life, the universe, and everything" face to face. Subjects including but not limited to politics and religion were discussed with close friends and rarely strangers. If you did share your political beliefs and ideologies with others, you generally felt out your audience beforehand lest you offend someone or ruin a dinner party. There have always been those with utter disregard for public etiquette, but before the proliferation of social media, breeches in etiquette were confined to smaller settings and fewer people. Today when we voice our opinions and our views anyone and everyone hears them. This can be a wonderful thing! We can share good news and science and discoveries in less than a millisecond! We can recommend the latest book we are reading or comment on the Olympics! We can share recipes or inundate our families and friends with pictures of our children! We can give a play by play of whatever college football game is on! This can also be terrible when we discuss controversial matters and forget that not everyone in our "friends" list subscribes to our personal ways of thinking. This can be really awful when you start to "push" your views or suggest that those that don't agree with you 100% are stupid or even evil.
It's an election year in the good 'ol U.S. of A. and to say that mud has been slung is quite an understatement. I don't know that this year holds any more vitriol than election years past, but I feel like the contention is more public in that it's not just college students and high-school students that use social media to broadcast their views. Now we have mothers, our grandfathers, our neighbor down the street, our old elementary school teachers, our church leaders, the kids we used to babysit, our college professors, and our softball and swimming coaches getting in on the action too. It's one thing to post that you support a certain candidate or policy, but I don't believe that Facebook or Twitter is the place for inflammatory political statements. Posting that "this guy is a hack and if you are stupid enough to vote for him you don't deserve to live," is not only rude, but sort of pointless... I mean, what is the purpose of posting something so hateful? Do you really think that you are going to change minds and hearts by calling people stupid? Maybe these posts are intended only for people who agree with you. But even if that is the case... what is the point? If all of them already agree with you, does it even need to be said? If you want to sit around your own home with like-minded people and stroke each others' egos and pat each others' backs for thinking alike then do that. Before you post online, though, think it through. Are you 100% sure that just because you think candidate "X'' is the man for the job everyone else agrees with you? If you know that not everyone agrees with you, do you wish to offend your friends? Do you wish to hurt their feelings? I'm not telling anyone to stop posting about politics. No one would listen to me even if I did. I just want to caution everyone to avoid hateful rhetoric or overly broad generalizations about people and their voting habits. Generalizations like "anyone that votes for "this person," is a Nazi, a thief, a communist, or a hippie," don't do anything productive.
This all goes for posts about religion too. Has history taught us nothing about religious tolerance? Just when I think we are making headway I see hateful posts about so many different religions. I'm not even going to give examples. We've all seen the hate and the ignorance. One of the drawbacks of social media is that while you can read, you can't listen. You can jump to conclusions, but you can't carry on a conversation (no, comments DO NOT count as conversation.) Just remember that while the majority of your friends may be religious, or may not, (whatever your case,) there are probably a few outliers that see the world differently than you do. Do you want to publicly discount their views? Do you expect them to remain your friend for long if you do this? I ask myself often... "If this person knew how I really felt about [this] topic, would they "unfriend" me?" Maybe they would! Then I follow that train of thought and wonder... do we really want to surround ourselves with people who only think like we do? Is that healthy or desirable?
Are you exhausted yet? Parenting is tough enough without the social media judgement out there. There may be a million wrong ways to be a parent, but did you ever think that there might be a million right ways too? We should be encouraging each other - not tearing each other down with passive aggressive posts. I can confidently guarantee that no two parenting styles are exactly alike. They shouldn't be. No two children are alike!
I will wrap this up with a few suggestions for future posts and status updates. The next time you get a hankering to post something controversial try asking yourself these questions:
1. Is there anyone that might read this and be offended? No? Post away!
2. Do I care if I offend anyone? No? Post away! Please be aware, though, that there are consequences. You may lose friends and start a commenting war. If this is your goal, seriously, post away...
3. Is this something I would feel comfortable saying to every single person on my friend list face to face? Yes? Post away!
There you have it. Now go out there and post nicely!
