When I was growing up, my Mom said, “If you have something to say to someone, say it to their faces or don’t say it at all.” If she had lived long enough to see FB, she’d probably add, “And don’t Facebook it either.”
I’m beginning to wonder if Social Networking sites are not, in part, a breeding ground for passive-aggressive behavior, where one can shout to the world about someone they’re pissed off at, make hints at who it is (that only the offender can understand) and so on…but not actually ever say to them, “Hey, I have a problem. Can I please discuss it with you?”
It goes deeper than that, though, and becomes a bit disturbing. Read on.
It’s evolved into a very strange world. Make no mistake, I’m grateful to be part of it, and I’m as much addicted to these social networking sites as anyone else, but anytime I’m tempted to put up a status message that is meant to vent “at” someone or “about” someone, rather than deal with the issue in a mature, adult manner, I really think twice and I think deeply about it. The reality is, what happens in Vegas might stay in Vegas, but what happens on the internet stays out there for-freakin’-EVER. (Notice the bold, italicized, and underlined stressor there.) We tend to forget that we’re not dealing with our own little group of friends in an intimate little bar somewhere, where our secrets fall on trusting ears. It’s very easy to forget that, because we can and do get very close to the groups we “friend.” It’s easy to forget that the world has access to everything we put online. Everything.
A year ago I had to “unfriend” a close family member because I noticed that she put up pictures of her little children, told very openly where they lived, where they played, and so on. These are very beautiful little blond-haired, blue-eyed girls. Bait for molesters and paedophiles, right? To this day, I bet she thinks I was angry at her because I unfriended her, but I did it to protect her and her family. I have nearly 2000 friends. I don’t know all of them personally. I hardly ever hear from some of them at all. In truth, some people “friend” us just so that they can plaster their “advertisements” on our walls, to promote a product or service, or try to sell us something. Very often they don’t even bother to say hello before doing it. We’ll get a friend request, accept it and BAM! — an ad lands on our walls. Do we know them? Do we know enough to say for sure that our kids would be safe with them? No. So, through my page, they could easily have gotten info about her kids. I felt it was best to unfriend her, rather than try to suggest to her that she might be more discerning about what she put out there. Nobody likes to be told what to do. Frankly, I have enough of a challenge managing my own life besides trying to manage the lives of others, so I don’t like to go there.
Most of the friends that I have on the Social Networking sites, I don’t know at all. Many of them, I do know. They show up on my page regularly, and it’s sort of become a watering hole like that bar on the old sitcom, “Cheers.” A wonderful group of people! I can honestly say that I’ve grown very, very close to some of them. I love them to pieces. They are usually the first people I turn to when I want to bounce ideas around, get feedback, or just whine that my back is bothering me. Some of them stop by with a “coffee” almost every day because they know I love my cappuccino. Others tag me in shoe photos because they know I have a shoe fetish. Others send me private messages that have been going back and forth for a few years. I’ve actually found distant cousins that I never knew about. So it’s a great place and many of these people are just a really, really fantastic group that I would gladly have in my circle of friends, in “real life.”
But there are others, as I said, that I do not know at all. I don’t know the first thing about them. That part is easy to forget when we put up status messages of a personal nature. But that’s the part that can get us into trouble. We forget that not only “our group” are reading this stuff. I Googled myself the other day (because we writers are known to have big egos, and we just do crazy stuff like that now and then to see where we rank!) and I was jolted to read status messages that came up, that I had put out there four years ago. There they were! They showed up in a Google search! Not only that, but when I clicked on “Images,” there was the display of small photos, of the people I have on my friends’ list, and information that THEY posted dating back for years.
Besides the dangers that we place ourselves in when we put too much information out there, there is also the factor that I opened this blog post with: Why put up as a status message, what you can’t or won’t say to someone’s face? If you don’t like a comment someone made, or something they did, why not tell THEM in a private message?
Another thing we see a lot of are these posts where women and men pine over someone they’re involved with, or having an online relationship with. These are almost coded. Nobody knows who they’re referring to when we read, “You broke my heart…I miss you..I live and die for you and you forget I’m alive…” and so on. We, who read these, know what the point is, so I won’t ask, what’s the point? The point is to get the attention of the offender, to perhaps make them feel sorry for what they did, or to win them back with undying love. It doesn’t work! A thousand people might read those messages but the one person who has decided to take a walk has probably stopped looking at your messages entirely, so those words are viewed by a whole mess of other people who can only shake their heads in dismay because they know it’s pointless, too. They’ve probably “been there, done that, got the t-shirt,” and know it’s a waste of time and energy. If someone has reeled you into an online relationship and then has decided to disappear, write off your losses and move on, because they certainly have. It’s a transient world this has become, where involvements happen between people who have never actually met ( which in some cases might be a God’s blessing, because they might very well be closet butchers!)
Yes, it’s a temporary, instant-gratification world but the very basic nature of human beings remains the same. Hunters hunt. Fishermen go fishing. Poets write. Marketing mongers deface your cyber-wall with graffiti. Sleaze-bags are on the prowl. Dogs are sniffing around bitches. Intertwined in all of that there is a fantastic, good-hearted, sincere population who can very easily become victims to those with less of a moral conscience. So many of these good people trust that if they operate with a certain code of moral ethics, the rest of the world will respect that and return the favor. It’s not like that. In Cyber-land, it’s really just too easy to play head-games with someone, reel them in all the way, and then make like a ghost and disappear when they get tired of you or bored with whatever game you’ve been playing with them.
I’m not trying to promote an atmosphere of fear, as much as shine the stark, glaring light of reality onto reality itself, and offer a few pointers, if you’re ready to accept them. If not, ignore this whole post. These are the pointers:
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Be very conscious about what information you’re broadcasting online. Remember that you’re not only sharing this info with your “close friends,” but with the entire world.
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Be very choosy and discerning about whom you decide to place your trust in. Trust isn’t something that automatically “comes with the package.” It is something that must be earned over time – sometimes a very LONG time. Don’t allow someone to use that old, “don’t you trust me?” line, when they’re trying to bleed information out of you. You are under no obligation to trust anyone who blew onto your page a few weeks ago, who has been drooling over your profile pictures. Talk to yourself as you would to your own child, and don’t put online what you would not want them to put online. It applies to you as well.
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Think twice about giving anyone a “strip tease” on a web cam. They can record it. There’s a program called “Pamela for Skype” that allows recording, and some cameras also provide that feature built in. Mine does. If not that, they can capture “stills.” Some may be doing this, “trusting” that their actions are private between them and the other party, and believing that they are in an honest-to-goodness “relationship” with that person. Let me tell you, if that person does genuinely have feelings for you, they would not pressure you into doing anything you’re not comfortable with. Anyone who presses this issue is only after what? Yes. I don’t even have to write it. But tell me, how would you feel if somewhere down the line, you were surfing the net and a naked picture of you showed up with your face in full view? What if your children saw this? Or your childrens’ teachers? Your boss? Your Priest, Minister, or the entire congregation became aware of it? (Yes, church-goers know about this stuff too!)
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Please revert back (at least in this one case) to the older, more honorable way of handling disagreements. Deal with it – and them – privately. Don’t Facebook it. Why do you think so many people are putting as their status messages, “Why don’t they have a ‘Who-gives-a-rat’s-ass’ button?”
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Also be very aware that your private messages are not all that private. The administrators of social networking sites have access to them. Hello? Nothing online is private. NOTHING.
It’s really very easy to forget that.
Until next time…
Have fun online, but be careful. There’s only one you and I’d hate to lose you.
Zee.
