What do you do if you’ve got two kids that for the life of them just can’t seem to get along and only want to FIGHT any chance they’re near each other???
No, no – this isn’t a parenting post about my newborn twins, who are still in the NICU and thus separated by a good five feet as well as a partition at all times anyways! 😛
In fact, we’re talking about adults … who argue … on Facebook, specifically, because not to defend the other quadrants of social media or anything, but I’ve never seen half the arguments on Twitter that I see boil over on my Facebook posts. I’d like to say that I don’t know what it is about Facebook that makes it different from other platforms, but I actually know exactly what it is because honestly it’s the same thing that makes Facebook attractive to me for entirely different reasons…
Simply put, Facebook is where I have friends and family from over the years; Twitter is where I have the people who are most like me.
And so whereas from one angle I love Facebook because it connects me with relatives and distant friends who otherwise aren’t really online people so they can still see family photos and the goofy humor stuff that I write, but in a way it’s also a bane because when we start to get into messier topics like, oh say, POLITICS, we often don’t share remotely the same opinions and sometimes people aren’t very civil about it.
…which I hate.
I shouldn’t have to apologize for what one of my Facebook friends says to another, nor should I have to play referee between people that have taken political passions to an entirely unhealthy level.
I’ve also found very recently that it’s stressful/painful/whatever you want to call it when close friends and/or family make comments about your beliefs that you once would’ve thought above the types of conversations that you’ve had with them.
I don’t want to go into anymore detail for fear of outing anybody, so instead let’s just say enough is enough and I’ve finally decided to do something about it. And luckily, Facebook actually makes that pretty easy…
Up until this week, all of my Facebook posts have always been public because I’ve been publishing to the Internet since back when it was text only and I don’t really believe in walled gardens. Still, my own sanity is worth twisting that perspective just a bit, so I made me a list and checked it twice … and ultimately came up with about 20 people on Facebook who I’m flat-out just tired of arguing about politics with during my time spent there.
I’ll still set most of my Facebook posts to public, but now when I have something I want to share that I just know is going to elicit undesirable comments from these same people who always get into the same arguments, I can set those posts to be Friends only – excluding those on my No Politics list – and BAM!
Peace and quiet on Facebook at last. 😉
Now a couple of points to close on:
- As to whether you’re on this list if you find yourself reading this on my blog! Let’s be honest with ourselves – you’ll probably know it if you are, and if my Facebook posts have seemed less controversial to you lately … no, I haven’t gone conservative – I’m just tired of arguing about it with YOU. 😛
- If bullet #1 there raises the argument that I only want to discuss things with people who agree with me, I’ve actually already written a fine editorial about this so feel free to go read that if you’d like. 😉
At the end of the day, I’ve only got so many hours and though I welcome a good discussion, it does either of us little good to keep having the same ceaseless comment threads over and over again. So maybe you can just gush over my latest family photos or that funny thing that I wrote about farting at the library instead.
But if you take offense to farting, too, so help me god if you don’t wind up on an entirely new list altogether! 😛