Facebook is a wonderful place to connect with an ever-expanding network of people. But it’s also a seed-bed for assorted forms of foolishness.
Avoiding these various forms of Facebook foolishness will help you maximize the joy of the holiday season without needless distraction or interruption. In this post, I’ll outline 3 rules for avoiding the 3 most common Facebook faux pas.
If you follow these rules, your Facebook experience should enhance the joy of the holiday season, rather than detract from it.
1. If you need attention, ask for it directly rather than attacking the people who you feel aren’t giving it to you.
How often have you seen posts that read something like this:
To all of you people out there who I thought were my friends and loved ones, you can kiss my . . . I thought you were my friends, but now that I’m going through a tough time, you haven’t been there for me at all! You never know who loves you until you go through a struggle. I thought you loved me, but now I know better!
Really? Did you have to say that? What you are really feeling is alone, rejected, abandoned, unloved . . . Why not just be an adult and say that? Don’t we teach even children to use their words to ask for what they want, instead of throwing a tantrum?
Why not just reach out to a few of your close friends in a private message and say something like this:
Hey guys, I haven’t heard from you in a while. I’m going through a really difficult time and I really need your encouragement and support right now. Could you guys come over and love on me sometime?
Isn’t that better than throwing a fb tantrum? And even if they don’t respond, you still have no business blasting them in a status update. You probably have between 500 and 5,000 fb friends. Why do they all need to know that you are mad at about five people?
My wife will sometimes put out a status update like this:
Anybody want to go to lunch with me?
Pretty straight forward, right? She feels like she wants to connect with some people, so instead of crying about it and vomiting all over the fb community, she just asks for what she wants. Amazing!
2. If you disagree with what someone else writes on their wall, state it respectfully or keep it to yourself.
Keep this in mind: you do have the right to your opinion, but being my Facebook friend is a privilege, not a right. If you abuse that privilege by writing things on my wall that are offensive to me, I have the right to correct you and/or de-friend you. My Facebook profile is like my house. If you come into my house disrespecting me, I’m going to put you out. Why do you think you should have the right to disrespect me on my Facebook wall?
Ain’t nobody got time for fb trollishness! If you’re engaging in it, you need to get a life! It may feel good to get the attention you’re getting when people respond to your foolishness, but you need to understand that this is not good attention. When a fool becomes well-known for foolishness, they become infamous, not famous!
Facebook is a useful tool for making and maintaining connections with people. But lately, people have been using it more as a tool for division and controversy than for connection and relationship.
Invariably, you’re going to have some friends that will say things on their walls that you will strongly disagree with. You need to just accept that and move on. You don’t have to respond to everything you disagree with. It is not your job to correct the thinking of the entire world! Correcting your own thinking will take you a lifetime as it is.
Whenever I disagree on someone else’s wall, I try to keep in mind that I’m a guest there and that my purpose in relating to them is to foster community, rather than to fix their thinking.
This is the principle of learning to choose your battles well. Don’t fight any battles for which there are no spoils.
3. Use your status updates to enrich people rather than to enrage people.
Some of these Facebook revolutionaries crack me up. They dream up the most controversial and inflammatory statements they can possibly think up, and they post them to their wall. And then they waste whole days and weeks fighting with the people who don’t follow rule number 2 (above). And what does it do for them? Nada!
Before you post something controversial, just ask yourself the following questions: Who cares? Where is the profit in talking about this foolishness? Will I actually convince anybody? Or will I just create unnecessary controversy?
If you can’t come up with good answers to those questions, save the drama for your mama!
If you don’t have anything good to say that you’ve come up with yourself, quote somebody else. Just google the words “inspirational quotes” and use them for some of your status updates.
Or, you can share a video on your wall that impacted your life in a positive way.
Or, you can make recommend books or other things you’ve purchased.
The possibilities are endless, and the principle is simple. Make people feel good about seeing your status updates in their newsfeed. Use your words to build up and not to tear down. If you follow these simple rules, you’ll spend the holiday season celebrating, rather than seething. And you’ll also become a source of celebration for others who might be having a difficult time making it through the holiday season.
