Un-Social Networking

Un-Social Networking

Summer is over! The children go back to school this week. All of the hustle and bustle begins. I am happy to move forward but gosh time is flying by!

This summer for the first time I did a lot of things I haven’t done before and experienced things that I hadn’t experienced. Social media, I think is really the most hazardous thing to one’s psyche ever invented! In fact it needs to come with a warning label: “THIS MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH”, and I am not speaking physically but, even worse than that it is emotionally dangerous and if not handled with care can and will cause major harm!

People in the early 1900’s communicated by walking down the street to see a friend or acquaintance. No one had to guess one’s feelings. The person would be standing directly in front of you and you could see, hear, and smell the person you were speaking to. If you saw someone from afar you would get a sense of that person’s emotional state. When telegraphs and mail were the mean’s to communicate, one would have to master some form of language to communicate how one felt.

The invention of the telephone helped with communicating you had the ability to hear a person’s voice on the other end and could again sense the person’s emotion. Are they happy or sad, angry or just sat there and breathed. You could call someone just to hear the sound of the other person’s voice.

Today with social media all senses are gone!!! You are left with words and pictures with no real human contact. Which leads me to the demise of society. I realized this summer that Social Networking not only was affecting children but, women and I am sure some men. I could see for a long time how children could use social media as a form of bullying but I never thought about adults. But it is happening. Adults are being affected and it is an emotional epidemic

I learned that people sit around and spend their idle time watching and reading peoples posts. Viewing what is happening in people’s lives via pictures.  Now these pictures are posted and it is a photograph and yes people in pictures are smiling and looking happy and doing something that they want to share with all of there nearest and dearest friends. But, true emotion does not come from a picture the picture is a visual representation or image. It is not a STORY!!! It is an image that was captured in a nanosecond. These pictures cause shear anguish in some lives. It is really inconceivable to me that people think they know someone or can judge another person just but what they see. There is a very, very old saying; “You can’t judge a book by its cover”. This covers the social media as well. You can’t judge a person by their page! Assumptions are made and feelings are hurt, it is sad and disturbing. What happened to having lunch or tea? Or even crazier picking up the phone to communicate rather than sitting at home in front of a computer screen trying to guess what everyone is thinking or doing. Don’t people have anything better to do in their lives than to watch what everybody else is doing? The scariest thing is that they have wars on these pages in front of the entire world to see! What happened to keeping your skeletons in the closet? Now everyone puts them on display. Emily Post is rolling over in her grave. Doesn’t anyone have a sense of dignity or self -respect for that matter?

I have told my children since the day that they designed their page that this is like a billboard of your life. This vehicle needs to be handled with care and respect, everything you post on your wall is just like a billboard that is on the side of the road that all can see and read. If you use it inappropriately you will no longer have the privilege to use it.

The idea is great if used properly but if you spend time watching these sites be careful and take things with a grain of salt. You have no idea what is going on in someone’s life by an image or a couple of words for that matter! The Social Network was created as a means for people to come together. People want to share their happy times with others. As Betty White said in her opening act on Saturday Night Live a couple years ago, excuse me if I paraphrase, she said “she couldn’t have imagined back in the day being invited over to friends for dinner and all they did was look at photo albums of their friends family vacations.”

Get out this Fall and live!!! Enjoy your senses, go to a sporting event (high school sports don’t’ cost very much and your supporting your community) a fair, to the park, get out and enjoy life. Sitting at home watching other people’s lives does nothing unless you are making a plan to get together!!! Enjoy this fall and if social media makes you nuts and do things you ashamed of sign off…. if your friends miss you they will pick up the phone…I promise. Get out and enjoy your senses.