Social Media; The Good, The Bad and The Downright Ugly

Truly? I am on the fence about social media which is odd coming from a blogger. My personal favorite is Pinterest. On that site I like to include a little bit of me, a little advertising, butterflies and a bunch of purple colored flowers to accentuate and punctuate the page.  Twitter I am just getting the hang of and joined to follow a few on there because, frankly, everyone is on there. Do I use it to it*s full potential yet for the business? Absolutely not. Facebook is wonderful for a business to have to connect with our fans and to network with other small businesses. Blogging? Well by now you should know I have an opinion about everything, but am not necessarily comfortable with sharing them all. Nor do I think anyone needs to be preached too. You have your Priests and Pastors to do that, as well as your own consciences. However, I do tend to do it as well when I get a bee in my bonnet.  YouTube is a whole other ball of wax. If it does nothing else it proves that I do not have photo shop and that my video developing needs, well more development.

This post, though is not about our use of social media as a business; it is about the drawbacks of using it in your personal life. One thing that drives me insane is being with someone, at a dinner, or whatever and they are glued to their cellphone. To me, that is one of the rudest things to do and it gives the impression that the game or text they are involved with is much more important than those around them.

What I do not understand is Facebook. My personal page, not the business page, has followers. Why? To be honest - I am not that interesting. All I can assume is that they are from one of the business communities I belong to and are mistakenly following me instead of the business page on FB. It would freak me out a bit to think that they are so interested in what recipes I share, or quotes I like or what posts I *Like.* The only reason why I went on FB to begin with was to create our business page. I am an incredibly private person and do not share photos, health updates, where I am nor what I am doing on it and I actually cringe when someone *tags* me in a photo or I show up on a map because the person I was with posted it (i.e. at this doctor with my Mom - ahem thanks Tom).

This week on FB, though, bought out the ugly in me and the ugly in a *friend.* We were reduced to cyber arguing. Seriously? Not my finest moment, that is for sure.  It is the last thing I would expect myself to be embroiled in, but it happened. After thinking about this person, prior chats on there with that person and things that the person said to me about others I said to myself, self, it is time you learned how to unfriend people. Why should I open myself up to the possibility that the person is sharing my personal information with others, just as that same person has shared other*s intimate information with me? It is tremendously awkward to know an extremely personal fact about someone that I know just well enough to say hi to in passing. This event had me so rattled, upset and angry that I practically ran to confession yesterday. That is no small feat (or should I say feet?) on these wobbly legs of mine.

Still, it amazes me what people do post on their FB page. In this day and age I would think that people would be a little more savvy in what they share and in pictures that they post. One of my older friends recently took his page down as he is job hunting. It is a wise decision in my opinion and he is in no way a renegade. The more I read on there, the more I see on other types of media sites, the more I know that privacy is a thing of the past. The more I read of others lives the more I ponder who are these people? Then again, they are probably thinking the same about me.  If I could be affected by cyber-bullying from spammers, trolls and yes even Facebook friends while sitting here selling Christian products, well then nobody is safe. Oh my gosh, I feel it coming on I am going to preach........if we as adults are open to all the downright ugly things that the internet has to offer then I implore you to know who your kids are talking to on Facebook and other media sites.  I have only two words to say about that - Parental Control. At the very least, keep your kids safe! Stepping down from the soap box now.....

Have a good week, and God bless,

Mare

Sushi and Facebook

Last night I treated myself to some good old fashioned Japanese food. I love the sushi wrapped around my Rock n Ladies Roll that I order; the California rolls, the ginger sauce that I dip the salad into. That to me is a little slice of heaven on earth. Though when I accidentally ate some veges that unbeknown to me were next to the wasabi I thought my head was going to explode. I just sat there frozen, not sure what to do as my sinuses cleared, my ears too, my eyes flooded and I thought to myself oh my God I am going to die on my couch with wasabi oozing out of my orifices and a few errant pieces of rice down the front of my shirt.  Well, obviously that did not happen and a bite or two of brown rice calmed my culinary senses and I managed to finish and enjoy my Salmon teriyaki.

I love Facebook too, though not as much as sushi. I hate Facebook too. Sometimes it is just as mind blowing as a bite of wasabi.  I will admit it, I really do not understand Facebook, at all. I do not get the phenomenon of community boards either. I do like reading through the blogs and I am proud of my one follower; she and I go back to our teenage years. That means the world to me, though folks from all over the world read this humble little blog. My stats tell me so.

For a short time when I was sick I visited a message board every day just to break the monotony and to get out of bed and sit up for a bit. This was before my Facebook years.  I used to watch The View every day from the comfort of my couch. Many things that they said made me spring from my prone position to sitting straight up. The last straw with them was when two of them, Joy and Whoopie, actually got up and left the stage because they did not agree with something that a visitor said. That was it for me. I could sit and listen to them  drone on about their viewpoints, which I rarely agreed with, but the moment that someone said something they considered offensive they were up and out of there. I cannot imagine someone like Leno or Letterman doing that. You invite a guest on and then get up and leave because you do not agree with them? That is unprofessionalism at its very best if you ask me (which you didn't [aha, the apostrophe is working today]).  Anyway, that is beside the point now. If I have watched 10 minutes of it since that day it is a lot and they certainly do not even know that I am gone. But, the point I  was getting to was the message board. There were actually some really lovely women that I met on there and we bonded over email instead of the board.  We were just kindred souls that had some how found each other, possibly with a little divine intervention, to bolster each other so that we could heal physically, emotionally and spiritually and then move on. What I learned from message boards is that anonymity breeds contempt, malice and outright disgusting behavior. What a sad reflection of humanity they can be. I keep my distance from all community chats now.

The positive aspect of the experience though gave me the oomph to finally open my first Facebook page, my personal one. At first it was wonderful. Through it I reconnected with old high school friends, relatives that I had not seen in years, old business colleagues, even my first boss with whom I had worked my first real job in 1977. I found it very exciting. Truly, I love to hear about others good fortunes. I will cry with them through the tough stuff and if you ask me to pray for something I will, every single day, until whatever it is you want me to pray for has come to fruition or some kind of conclusion. I love, love, love the ones that share their lives, even just a bit - graduations, weddings, grandkids, moves - all the good things that life has to offer. I just love seeing what my niece and her family are up to on a daily basis and to hear what my great-nephews have said or done. I love watching my other niece live her life with the man of her dreams, her impending graduation coming, her life ahead of her. I pray for my friends that are struggling or have their kids in our military.  It is not like that though. The majority of what you get on Facebook from your friends is garbage - horoscopes of the day, game invitations, ads, no responses to personal messages you have sent them and horror of horrors the friend collectors. I know I have 2 - from the Philippines who I have no clue who they even are and besides who else would have thousands of friends?

I saw a post from a friend of mine one day. His friend was asking him how did you get 413 friends and what can I do to accomplish that as well? His answer? First it was well, get out more and then he basically said well I may have 413 friends but only 2 true ones. That got me thinking about my friend list. How many real true friends do I have on there, not including family of course, I would say 5. If Facebook has taught me anything it is that if I have 5 people in this world that I consider real, true  honest-to-God friends, then I am way ahead of the game and I am truly blessed.

Peace,

Mare