WEDNESDAY THOUGHTS: SOCIAL ORDER

There are some days when I wonder if I bumped my head for getting involved in social media. 

I wonder about the state of communication. Are we listening to what people are actually saying, or what we think they mean? 

Are we reading and comprehending what's on the lines, or reading between them, and infusing our own biases and notions? 

Are we looking for confrontation? 

Are we so busy following, adding friends, and making lists, that we're speaking and responding before we think? 

Are we sure that we're communicating effectively ourselves? 

Does spelling and grammar matter anymore?

Do we weigh the consequences of our words before we click "send" or "enter"?

As nice as one tries to be, someone will ultimately be offended by something you’ve posted. 

As vulgar or profane as one purposes to be, one will always wonder what the uproar is about when people, who happen to see their cry for attention, decide to cry foul. 

There are calls for some to lighten up, and calls for others to rein it in. Everyone is looking, and comparing, exposing and sharing. 

It's all so interesting:
*Tagging people in notes, pictures and videos in which they don't even appear

*Sending out invitations to events knowing the people getting them can't possibly show up because they don't live anywhere near the venue, or even in the same state 

*"Friending" enemies just to keep tabs

*"Friending" people that one doesn't even speak to when one sees them in public 

*Soliciting fans before the prospective fans can get a taste of what they're supposed to be fanatical about...

Social networking is a wonderful, helpful, valuable concept to some, and an unwise, creepy, dangerous, and unbelievable waste of energy and time to others. Some love it for it's immediacy, and others brand it as the murderer of actual human contact, conversation and hand written notes.

I suppose it would be safe to say that social networkers are fairly open, outgoing individuals. Even people who try to limit access to themselves, by protecting, blocking, hiding and deleting, still betray the whole "I want my privacy" thing by being a part of the network in the first place.

I wonder why some people friend me at all. I think some people have forgotten that they did. There are just some things that I don't want to see or know about them. 

I'm very concerned about the young people who clearly think that their walls and pages have extraordinary super powers to render themselves invisible to all but a select few. Some of the most out of control, careless "networkers" are young people who are regular church goers (and their pastors and at least one parent are among their top friends). 

I have never seen so much gratuitous profanity, misspelled words, disagreeable subjects and verbs, and credibility suicides in all my life. 

All in the name of fun, I fear that scholarships, jobs, and sought after opportunities are being lost by the "keepin' it real" and "do you" generation. 

Yes. Some days I feel like a very old person. I just want to ask them if they know how much they are harming and debasing themselves. Some days I wish I didn't care so much.

I know. There is nothing new under the sun. Just different players with updated toys. The new toy is social networking. Folks my age have enthusiastically jumped onto the bandwagon, much to the dismay of our students, mentees, young neighbors and relatives. We're seeing too much, calling stuff out, interjecting our two cents into conversations, sending warning messages, offering unsolicited advice, and cramping the styles of the youngsters among us. 

Even as we're unfriended and deleted, I say, cramp away. It's our duty as budding old people. We have to keep the tradition alive.

It gets frustrating, though, when you realize that some people don't care, or simply don't know any better.

I spent a good deal of time last year trying to run interference, and be the voice of reason. I have decided to hang up my den mother hat this year. I like facebook, myspace and twitter. I haven't exactly been discriminating when it comes to accepting friends. I generally accept anyone who asks. Folks who don’t get deleted, are usually those who quickly demonstrate that they obviously have aspirations to work full time for the devil. 

I try to give people the benefit of the doubt. It's kind of odd, though, when the request picture looks like it fell off of the family channel, and then you look again a few days later, and there are butt cheeks staring you in the face.

I sent a message to two church-going young people about their posts. One took the advice and removed it. The other essentially told me to mind my business. I would love to have minded my business, except that their wackadoo conversation showed up in my timeline...

*sigh*

Some days, I think about deleting ALL of my pages. I wonder what I was doing before social networking. It occurred to me that have never said, "Happy Birthday" and “Happy Anniversary” to so many people in all my life.

Sometimes I wonder if I skipped the chapter on social networking rules, or if some people make up rules for themselves that they expect everyone else to follow. 

I've been asked by Christians (who I thought kinda loved Jesus), why I post passages of scripture. I've been told that "that's not what facebook is for". Why does the Bible bother people who supposedly own one and read it? 

Someone always wants to know why my wall or page is not like theirs. A young preacher wrote about an impending lap dance. Another person told what they thought about a very well known person's attire. Yet another decided it would be a good idea to discuss the state of their winter-battered feet. 

Countless people complain about their supervisors and co-workers, wives, husbands and children. 

If I see one more self-portrait, obviously taken in a bathroom, I don't know what I'm going to do. 

When I get the suggestions as to what I need to put on my page or wall to spice it up a bit, I just type the smiley face and keep it moving. 

I guess it wouldn't be nice to say, "Because it's MY wall. if you don't like it, delete me".
I could have said that this morning, but I didn't. 

THEM: Explain.
ME: Huh?
THEM:"Why did you delete my comment?"
ME:"What was your comment?"

They couldn't even remember it. They just knew it was deleted. I was wondering why I was being interrogated. I explained that I often read and delete comments that I perceive to be for my eyes only. Unfortunately, that didn't suffice. The individual had clearly been watching my wall, and commenced to tell me about all of the other comments that I had not deleted. 

Now that, my friends, is bordering on stalking. 

Then it hit me. Some people post comments to your wall and page, not for YOU to see, but for OTHERS to see. I had apparently removed their poorly created networking opportunity. (Yes. Graphics and grammar matter to me.)

Did I really have to explain why I deleted a comment off of the wall that I set up? Apparently, yes. 

I couldn't recall what the comment was, but I would have probably fared better if I'd said, "Because your post and comment was an eyesore. It was ignorant, in poor taste, and had absolutely no bearing to the topic at hand, or anything I ever want on my page. I could have left it there so that everyone could see what an complete idiot you are, but I decided to rescue you from the swift, intelligent, witty, and brutally critical individuals who populate my friends list."

I COULD have said that, or worse, but I didn't. It wouldn't have been nice.