Shamefully, here’s a list of social media blunders I’ve made many times over the years – thankfully, kind and caring friends pointed them out to me – sharing these now is NOT an accusation – only you know “if the shoe fits.”
Challenging friends or followers to share or repost your post is NOT a valid evaluation of their friendship, religious conviction, patriotism, parenting skills, or passion for a topic – why would we want to put that kind of pressure on friends in a forum meant to be communal?
Posting, reposting, or sharing biased (one sided) political, medical, social, religious, or patriotic positions WITHOUT validating the post is irresponsible and manipulative – validating a post means going to a “source document” – almost everything has a source document available to us – why are we so reluctant to validate a post, and so quick to repost it at face value?
Agreeing with a biased (one sided) post is not the same as validating the post – we all have personal beliefs, opinions, and preferences – these views are being twisted, attacked and manipulated from all sides – it seems like moral, God fearing, honest people make every effort to leverage truth and transparency, and NOT add to the misinformation problem?
Social media, politicians, commentators, opinion based news, or influencers are NOT “source documents” – truth and transparency are packaged in verifiable facts, not in the form of opinion or commentary – sadly, trust and honesty are rare characteristics for social media, politicians, commentators, news media, or influencers – why would we hitch our social media wagons to anything not based in verifiable facts?
Responding to mass posts requesting personal information is dangerous – our personal information has great value – perhaps we should take care with the amount of personal information we dump into the evil inner webs – we’ve all experienced online breeches of personal information – why would we want to feed more data into the personal information monsters?
If you wouldn’t say it to a person’s face, don’t say it on social media – arguing, baiting, shaming, bullying, etc are easy social media traps – it’s the simplest application of “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” – make your point tactfully and respectfully, then let it go – none of us (no, not one) readily change our personal beliefs, opinions, or preferences based on what we read on social media.
Social media has almost no barriers from a human behavior perspective – that why is so easy to:
-Carelessly repost misinformation.
-Jump onto false or bad trends/threads. -Not recognize or understand false or hidden agendas.
-Incorrectly trust posts/shares.
-Fail to apologize, or acknowledge an error.
-Fail to be respectful, kind, or caring.
Social media is ever-changing – so, care is required – mistakes made on social media will almost always boil down to a lack of knowledge and careless usage – as long as we keep ourselves informed and treat social media with the same respect we typically afford any human (face to face), social media can be a great platform for spending time with friends and family.
Kevin's Thoughts 