In the course of making this blog, I have mentioned social media a lot. It's a hot topic and it is a part of most people's daily lives. Because of that, I think it is something that deserves a lot of discussions. That being said, I have a bone to pick with social media. From the title, I think it is probably pretty obvious what I have to say and who it is addressed to. To be fair to me, if you have made it far into the post, you're going to have to finish it to understand what I really mean by the title.
To set the scene for you, I am going to paint a picture. You will need to use your imagination, so close your eyes. Now open them; you're going to need to be able to read what you are supposed to imagine! Imagine this: you just finished a long day at school and work and you are sitting on your sofa at home at long last. As you wait for your meal to cook, you pull out your phone and decide to rest your mind by hopping on social media for a bit. You're hoping for some entertainment: maybe your nerdy friend posted the newest Star Wars trailer for you to watch, your weird friend may have posted another series of funny cat memes for you to browse through, or you might find that cute guy or girl you met the other day and try to slide in their DM's. You get through the first few pictures of engagements and you give them their obligatory likes. Now the search for entertainment has begun. But, as you search for funny cat memes and the latest Long Beach Griffy videos, all you seem to come across is people posting angrily about politics. Ranging from logical, infrequent, and written out with pure intention to illogical, daily posts written to anger the public mind, these trumpets of unsolicited opinions cover your news feed, choking out the already rare entertaining posts. Shaking your head, you turn off your phone without accomplishing any of the goals you originally had in mind. With that, our example comes to a close
Now, I don't mean to say that it is a bad thing to use Facebook to share opinions and ideas. But, it also isn't the reason I use Facebook or any other social media. I use social media to stay in touch with friends and to entertain me when my brain is fried and I don't want to do anything else. I understand an occasional political or opinion-based post. However, when that is all I see when I am on social media and when the ideas are poorly thought out or cliche, it really starts to get on my nerves. It kills my desire to use social media and often severely lowers my opinion of the people who posted whatever it is.
For the reasons stated above, I feel like if all you do on Facebook is vent about politics, you need to realize that you are preaching to people who don't care and probably won't be convinced by what you have to say. Which means you should probably go and vent out your ideas somewhere else. And this goes to you as well, news outlets. Any intelligent person will not rely on social media as their main source of political information. Either keep it to yourself or go put it out there where someone cares.
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