Creating A Framework For Social Media Interactions

We are with you on this one!  It is difficult to pass up a stupid post without pointing out how stupidly stupid the stupid assertions in the stupid post are!

 

Sometimes it can feel like “where do I even begin to reply to this…”
But do we really need to reply?  Or can we just keep scrolling, leaving the stupidity of the post to stand for itself!

 

How long will that stupid post bother you?

Are you still going to be irritated by it after it scrolls up and off your screen?  Are you still going to be irritated with it five minutes from now?  Are you still going to be irritated with it in an hour?  Seriously, ask yourself this question.  (Remember the part about being intellectually honest, self-reflective, and open-minded!)

More than likely three minutes from now an adorable cat video is going to wipe all memory of the stupid post from your mind! 

 

If a tree falls in the woods…

Remember the old axiom, “If a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it, does it make a noise?”  Well ask yourself, a similar question.  “If an idiot posts something stupid online, and you don’t see it, does it matter that you never responded to it?”  I mean really!  Is the entire world sitting around waiting for you to chime in on every single stupid post.  What are we worried about?  That if we pass up a single post without commenting, that the world might come apart?

 

But I saved THAT starfish!…

As long as we are going to talk about old axioms, what about the story of the man on the beach who kept throwing starfish back into the sea.  When taunted, because there was no way that he could possibly save all of the starfish from dying he responded by saying “yes, but I saved that one!”  Should this be our approach?  We can’t possibly reply to all of the stupid comments online, but at least we replied to THAT one?

Well, yes, we did reply to that stupid comment.  But then… what did we actually accomplish?

 

Did we convince the other person that they are stupid?

Even if we make some brilliant comment using unassailable logic, backed by indisputable sources, making it impossible for the other person to intelligently reply to us… Chance are pretty high that we still won’t have convinced them that we are right.  All we will have done is make them think that we are a stupid person, who just happens to be more articulate then them.

 

Did we save the world?

Probably not.  Undoubtedly other lurkers who see our post will “like” our comment.  Which can be a nice pat on the back.  But then, others will also undoubtedly like the stupid person’s comment, and then what?  What if more people “like” the stupid comment then like ours?  Or worse, they might start passive aggressively “liking” our comment using the “laugh”, “anger”, or “sad” emoji.

Ah the silly things that we worry about online…

 

We may lose a friend

How many times can you publicly call out an idiot before they unfriend us?  You might not care that you have one less friend online, but ask yourself how much influence you will have on that person in the future, if they no longer see your posts?

It isn’t just that we stop seeing their posts!  They also stop seeing ours.  Making all of us more isolated within our own self-reinforced echo chambers.

 

Could we respond more softly?

If we really must respond, and there are undoubtedly times when we must, then perhaps we aught to really strive to respond in as soft and kind of a manner as possible.  Using phrases like “in my view…,” “That is a good point, here are a few more things to consider…,”  “I really like what you said about… here is another perspective…”  and so forth.  Thus validating the goodness of the other person, while still addressing the issue that we feel must be addressed.

 

The Other Person Deserves Our Respect

Regardless of how stupid their post may have been, the other person knows things that we don’t know.  They are experts in things that we are just beginning to understand.  They have something profound to teach us, and they deserve our respect.

Rather than jumping all over them in an effort to publicly humiliate them, we would do so much better to stop, consider their point of view, and then show them empathy for who they are.  We don’t have to agree with their positions, but we can always learn something useful from them!

 

It Is Time To Draw Your Own Conclusions!

Hooray!!  Once again we have arrived at the fun part!  Where you get to take the useful things that we have discussed and incorporate them into your belief system, while throwing out the “stupid” suggestions that we made.  (Yes, we can admit that we too can be stupid!)  So take a moment now, and decide what on this page makes sense to you, and what on this page is dumb, and not worth the time of day.

 

Then decide for yourself:  How will you respond to stupid posts when they come up in your news feed?