Sunday, May 26, 2013

Aw, Man! Quit posting all that crap!

If you are a Facebook user, and I am, you've noticed that there are several different types of people on Facebook. There are the ones that lurk, the ones that post on occasion, the ones that put their whole life out there and the ones who do very little else but repost the memes and jokes, banners and pictures that someone else already posted.

There are a couple of other types, but lets not get complicated.

I use facebook (to play candy crush) to keep up on the happenings of the people in my life. I love the personal stories, pictures, the life updates. I enjoy the occasional article shared with thought. What I don't love is all the political and religious stuff posted over and over. My politics and relationship with the almighty is personal. I don't need to hear about yours. It used to be that you didn't discuss politics and religion because you didn't know who you were going to offend. Now it seems that any platform is a good platform for evangelism.

I have blocked the photos of many friends and family for this, which is sad because I don't get the updates they send out their lives or pictures of their children. I learned recently, that if I can't see them, they can't see me. In some cases I'm okay with that.

I have one friend with a child with Autism. Actually, I have many friends with children who have Autism. It's frightening. But this friend is always posting memes about how wonderful her boy is, how special, how we need to understand Autistic children because they are special.

And they are.

But I was starting to get a little annoyed. Until I was reading the comments on this post. The post itself is poignant and heartfelt. It talks, more than most people do, about some of the difficulties attached to raising a child who redefines normal. But one of the comments made me realize...

My friend, she isn't posting randomly, she's reaching out. She may not have the community of people that she needs. Like me, she has moved away from our home town, away from her mom and the friends that were her support system when her boy was born.

Suddenly, I'm not so annoyed anymore.

1 comment:

Sensei said...

I get a little carried away with the political stuff. But, it started as a reply to the left-side poli-friends I had...Got rid of most of them after they started gloating after the election.

But, I try to use this question before I post, "If any of my friends posted this, would I want to see it?" That curbed many posts, some to the point where I had it all laid out and asked one more time before hitting the "post" button.