Balance - Is it a thing?

[franciscanheart]

I've noticed lately a lot of negative posts about people or issues or articles or.. whatever.. across all social media platforms. I feel like so much of my newsfeed or timeline or whatever is about how people are wrong and not how people are beautiful. Selfies, pictures of kids, memes making fun of people, news articles being mocked, more babies, maybe a kitten...

Where's the balance? I try to use my Facebook account to build people up -- to celebrate life and have something to look back on when I'm feeling blue. How did it become so negative? When did it turn into the FOMO-inducing monster that it is? Has it always been that way?

Is balance possible in social media? Can we both point out why people are wrong AND supply two or three times as many pieces about how people are right? Or better yet, point out things that are beautiful or uplifting or enriching? I hesitate to say never but I very often do not see good book excerpts being shared or saint lives being honored. Lots of HERE'S MAH FOOD or MURICA posts but not much else.

Before you say I have the wrong friends, remember that many of you are friends with me on Facebook.  And a lot of the negative comes from my Christian friends.

There are a few that are always such a light in my feed, and for them I am grateful. But I wonder -- if my friends who post criticisms of things are not doing anything wrong, how can I (or we) encourage the other end of things -- the lighter, happier, more positive and encouraging things?

 

I'm rambling. I'll shut up.

Edited April 7, 2015 by franciscanheart

[Era Might]

[franciscanheart]

But... so many. I feel like people who are not people you would necessarily label as being "negative" are negative on social media. Without realizing it. Aside from keeping my [public] end of things positive, how else do you affect that culture?

I legit unfollowed close to 100 people on Facebook last week just because I was tired of seeing all the useless / negative / self-absorbed croutons. I love them all dearly but I don't want to see it. I have realized more and more lately how such small doses of negativity, delivered as if via IV drip, really affects me. It's made a difference, and without anyone knowing (until now), but I wonder if there's something that can be done to balance that.

I think the same is true here. So often we talk about the negative stuff -- what someone did or said that was wrong, why this or that person or organization has it backwards, why that bishop was ALMOST right. We don't often talk about things that are lovely or fulfilling or encouraging. That conversation tends to die pretty quickly. Why?

[Winchester]

I thought this was going to be about afflictions of the inner ear.

[Anomaly]

Happy and pleased with life is boring.    Contentment is considered the same as apathy or complacency.   

With the sheer volume of opinion we are now bombarded with, people tend to want to stand out.  

I'm old so I can get away with no Facebook.   Instagram is enough and is usually positive.   I visit Phatmass to balance my generally positive perspective and avoid naivety.  

[Era Might]

But... so many. I feel like people who are not people you would necessarily label as being "negative" are negative on social media. Without realizing it. Aside from keeping my [public] end of things positive, how else do you affect that culture?

I legit unfollowed close to 100 people on Facebook last week just because I was tired of seeing all the useless / negative / self-absorbed croutons. I love them all dearly but I don't want to see it. I have realized more and more lately how such small doses of negativity, delivered as if via IV drip, really affects me. It's made a difference, and without anyone knowing (until now), but I wonder if there's something that can be done to balance that.

I think the same is true here. So often we talk about the negative stuff -- what someone did or said that was wrong, why this or that person or organization has it backwards, why that bishop was ALMOST right. We don't often talk about things that are lovely or fulfilling or encouraging. That conversation tends to die pretty quickly. Why?

​Not sure. I was listening to a YouTube lecture about "conversation" as a philosophical concept, what it requires, the different kinds, etc. Literally a means a "turning with" as though the people in the conversation are turning around a common point. True conversation requires a certain intimacy and respect that does not get defensive at the other but pursues the conversation where it leads. Then there are other kinds of conversation, such as two people sharing their opinions on the movie, which is not really "conversation" in the truest sense but more an esteem-building exercise where you demonstrate that you respect each other's opinions (but you also don't really get too deep into them, because you don't have that kind of conversational trust to really say what you want to say, you're just focused on affirming the other person). I don't know what kind of "conversation" goes on in social media, but it seems like it's not really "conversation" so much as thought projection to show you have opinions and to interject them into your social circle.

[veritasluxmea]

I also have issues with Facebook, narcissism from both myself and others, and negativity. I don't have an answer, but I usually handle it by distancing myself from facebook, period. I haven't posted in a few months and that really helps me with the narcissism aspect. As for other people, I just let them do their thing and try to think the best of them, even if it's the 20th selfie this month. You can unfollow someone without unfriending them too. Any other internet thing I use, I keep it anonymous. 

[franciscanheart]

​Not sure. I was listening to a YouTube lecture about "conversation" as a philosophical concept, what it requires, the different kinds, etc. Literally a means a "turning with" as though the people in the conversation are turning around a common point. True conversation requires a certain intimacy and respect that does not get defensive at the other but pursues the conversation where it leads. Then there are other kinds of conversation, such as two people sharing their opinions on the movie, which is not really "conversation" in the truest sense but more an esteem-building exercise where you demonstrate that you respect each other's opinions (but you also don't really get too deep into them, because you don't have that kind of conversational trust to really say what you want to say, you're just focused on affirming the other person). I don't know what kind of "conversation" goes on in social media, but it seems like it's not really "conversation" so much as thought projection to show you have opinions and to interject them into your social circle.

Very interesting. And helpful. Thank you for that post.​

 

I also have issues with Facebook, narcissism from both myself and others, and negativity. I don't have an answer, but I usually handle it by distancing myself from facebook, period. I haven't posted in a few months and that really helps me with the narcissism aspect. As for other people, I just let them do their thing and try to think the best of them, even if it's the 20th selfie this month. You can unfollow someone without unfriending them too. Any other internet thing I use, I keep it anonymous. 

​I unfollowed a lot of people. And I don't think less of them at all. I love everyone I'm friends with on Facebook in some capacity and see good in each of them. How much I "interact" with their thought projection, however, is totally in my control. I've taken advantage of that control recently.

[PhuturePriest]

I would recommend putting all these people on a giant seesaw and seeing for yourself if balance is possible or not.

[franciscanheart]

Happy and pleased with life is boring.    Contentment is considered the same as apathy or complacency.   

With the sheer volume of opinion we are now bombarded with, people tend to want to stand out.  

I'm old so I can get away with no Facebook.   Instagram is enough and is usually positive.   I visit Phatmass to balance my generally positive perspective and avoid naivety.  

​I was thinking last night that I could give up all social media if I could just keep Instagram. I love Instagram. It's my "zen" app. I could scroll through those images for hours. I find Instagram to be mostly positive (my feed anyway) or at least authentic and encouraging. People suffer -- that's life -- but they do it with such grace there and the community often shows so much support. I couldn't be more pleased with my Instagram experience.

[dUSt]

Facebook requires maintenance. Use the unfollow option as much as possible. I have thousands of friends, but I only see about 20 people on my wall. Here's the usual reasons why I unfollow people:

• Don't know them
• Too political
• Too inappropriate
• Posts too much
• Only uses for business reasons
• Never brings me beer anymore

[Ash Wednesday]

For a while, especially when facebook was new and when I had just moved abroad, I'd often only go on there to rant when I needed a sounding board to deal with living in a new country. 

But then I started having friends or family worry about me more than necessary, and I realized that my posts were always giving off the impression that I was always angry or unhappy and it made things sound worse than they were. So I guess since then I try to keep the posts positive or interesting for the most part. Sometimes if I need to vent I will. I avoid publishing anything too hugely personal on social media like the plague.

I wonder if some people use social media for a sounding board because they feel like they have no outlet to vent out their frustrations -- but they forget to view the whole picture at times. We don't always want to hear that stuff all the time. It's tiresome.

 

And cyber bullying is downright diabolical and all sorts of messed up. 

 

[IcePrincessKRS]

I regularly weed out people that I don't find particularly edifying. If I feel guilty about deleting them I just unfollow them, but 9 times out of 10 it boils down to the fact that they aren't really particularly close to me (most on the chopping block are acquaintances at best) and don't need to be all up in my business. I've deleted a lot of people over the years, phatmassers, college classmates, military acquaintances... I have about 200 people on my friends list and the vast majority of them are family members (I always feel guilty not adding family, even if they are really distant cousins). I kind of feel like if you know me well enough to have my phone number and know birthday (and aren't related to me) you've earned a spot on my list; if you don't have either of those things going for you... well, you must have something special going for you for me to keep you around. There are a few exceptions to that rule, but I've found that that keeps my newsfeed a much happier place. (I say newsfeed, FB-speak, but I mean all social media.) I've got a few complainers, but for the most part I enjoy the content of my newsfeed. I like to think that, for my part, I keep most of my complaining private (unless I can be funny about it) and just share the more enjoyable things in life with the public.

I don't think that that actually provides an answer to your question. It's just my way of dealing. I'm not sure there's anything you can do to change what other people post, but you can choose what you share and how you interact.

Edited April 7, 2015 by IcePrincessKRS

[franciscanheart]

I did find a great comfort in unfollowing. I was immediately rewarded with enjoyable content from people I had previously rarely seen in my feed. I have over 700 friends on Facebook, so it's inevitable that I'll have some negativity flowing through. I'm having to learn to be selective and not feel bad about curating my content since Facebook doesn't do a great job.

[PhuturePriest]

My favorite people on Facebook are those who give a consistent daily drama report on their lives. "Oh woe is me, life is a black hole of sadness and nothing ever goes my way." It's always better when they say something as incredibly vague as it is dramatic, and when people ask "What's going on?" they either don't answer or give a vague answer like "People are just so mean to me all the time." They do this daily, and the same people over and over again give the same replies of sympathy and promises of prayers going their way. I think my favorite is when people rant to a particular person in their lives without saying who they actually are in an act of meaningless public drama, usually ending with something like "You know who you are," to top it off. These appear to be behaviors particular to teenagers and young people in their 20s, for whatever reason that may be. There are two people in particular I know who do these things every single day, and though it was quite intriguing for a while to see humans behave like that just to get attention, it did become wearisome and I decided to unfriend them. Needless to say my Facebooking has consequentially become more enjoyable.

Life is too long to endure optional BS and drama.