Sunday, April 30, 2017

Politics and Social Media

There are many things I don't understand in this world. Why people pay $100 for a hair cut.  Why someone would buy something just because it's on sale even though they don't need it.  Why people believe everything they read in a supermarket tabloid.  Those same people who say the National Inquirer is nothing but fiction believe everything they read on Facebook.

I have been on Facebook for a number of years.  I first started my account of Facebook to keep in touch with my family who is spread from one side of the country to another.  I love watching their individual family's grow.  Then I loved keeping in touch with my friends that I haven't seen in years. Catching up with what's been going on in their lives.

Recently, I've noticed that politics and social injustice has taken over.  In fact friends old and new have been caught up on the political rhetoric that news agencies have blasted their airways with. Funny thing is no matter what news agency it is only tells one side of the story and it isn't even necessarily true.

Human nature is an interesting thing.  We find something we agree with and we tell everyone we know about it.  Or we find something we disagree with and shout about it from the roof tops.  Thing is with social media our rooftops just got a lot bigger.  Some people are social activists who then take it one step further and hit the streets with it.  We have clashes in the streets, people rioting and looting, and protesting leaving everything in a worse state than when they came.  Then all of this hits social media and friendships are lost, understanding has gone out the window and everyone yelling at everyone else right from the privacy of their own home.

It is easy to get caught up in an argument with someone but we forget forty other people can read it. Then they chime in and now its gone viral and there is no taking anything back.  Once it hits the airwaves it out there.  We teach our children to be careful what the post, but we need to take some of our own advice.  You can disagree and be kind.  It's called diplomacy.

Until next week.


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