Social Media: My Love Affair, My Addiction

Social Media: My Love Affair, My Addiction

Jennifer Burns

On any given day, any of my 405 twitter followers or 430 Facebook friends will be bombarded with things I find important, things I find interesting, or the fact that my husbands scrambled eggs smell like poison. Some of it is information that some people can use. Some of it is information that I feel people need to know to better themselves. The rest of it, I'll admit, is me thinking I'm hilarious and that everyone needs to hear what would come out of my mouth if they were sitting across from me anyway.

The downside of all this isn't the most common complaint I hear, which is the potential for identity theft. If someone wants to steal my identity at this point in my life, they'd be the one with the problem, because even I don't want my identity. I'm a realist in that the chances of my children being abducted by a stranger are much lower than the chances of them being abducted by a relative or friend, so I've never been paranoid that someone in Nevada will see a photo of my kids and go off the deep end and HAVE TO HAVE THEM. No, the downside is that, in order to get the latest gem my brain has popped out, I eschew important things, such as writing this essay, to get my words out to the masses. But, here I am, a full 24 hours after it was assigned, and I've written well over 1000 words on both twitter and Facebook that could have been put to better use on this essay. Because, apparently, I felt people needed to know that: 1) A fellow student had an annoying ringtone in the lounge, 2) I don't hate math, I just think fractions are illogical, 3) and that I think getting high before an exam is one of the easiest ways to fail said exam.

This isn't a recent happening. I've been utilizing social media since the early 2000's, when you had to code your blog by hand because Wordpress and Blogger hadn't been invented yet. But, I didn't always know my audience. I would write poems, write graphics tutorials, post photos of my son, and badly written short stories, usually to an audience of 3-6 friends who would pat me on the back and tell me I was amazing no matter how horrible the content was.

I have always been a very opinionated person. It got me in a lot of hot water when I was in high school, but I learned at a young age that there are places and people you don't share your opinion with, like at work in front of your boss, or at the dinner table in front of my mom. One shouldn't opine openly about religion, politics, or sports unless the temperature of the “water” has been felt and is comfortable.

In this same regard, there are things I know I can post without controversy on each social media platform I use, and I try to use my judgement accordingly to keep from unnecessarily ruffling feathers.

For instance, my Facebook “friend” list contains mostly family members and people who know me from my work as a 3D artist and the moderator of an art community. While I am a member of a handful of politically motivated groups, I don't post a lot of politically themed messages on facebook because I'd rather not offend my very conservative family members and members of the art community that are also conservative.

In contrast, I pretty much let loose on twitter. That is not to say that I hide behind anonymity and spout abusive statements all day long. I just post more politically motivated thoughts there than I do on Facebook. This isn't to say banal thoughts don't slip through. That's actually most of my stream, and it's how I gain followers. With 140 characters, you have to actually say something catchy or funny to catch people's attention and keep it, and I'm apparently doing a good job for not being a celebrity or spam-bot.

There are times when I've taken a self-imposed vacation from social media. Not because I'm paying too much attention to it and not to my family, but because it can become emotionally draining. I've always tried to see things from other points of view during a discussion, but the one thing I can't get my head or heart past is hatred, especially when it's not coming from a place of honesty. I can understand disagreeing with a political figure, whomever they might be. I can not understand wishing death or harm upon them, or their families. I can understand praying for someone to change their mind. I cannot understand praying that God will remove them from this earth. Unfortunately, too many people don't realize that saying something on the internet doesn't mean you didn't say it at all. But, I've learned that, sometimes, it doesn't matter how much positivity you present; sometimes angry people want to stay angry. So, rather than remove myself from the picture, I now remove the negativity from my feeds, explaining why if they're actually family.

This frees me up to enjoy lively discussions based on respect and mutual interests. This isn't to say that I have culled my lists down to people who agree with me on everything. That would be boring, and I would be missing out on a lot of great people. And, you know, I just can't see myself cutting people out of my life.