Transparency about social media

As of this past week, I finished all the big stuff I have been working on for the year. The last three months have been brutal but now I am trying to relax a bit and am thinking about 2015. I want to talk about one of the things I have been thinking about: social media.

In regards to social media, I often find myself conflicted. First of all, for what I do, I need to be engaged in social media from Facebook to online forums and blogs. On a professional level, social media is great.

On a personal level, it is not so great.

Don’t get me wrong. We live in an incredible world where we have the opportunity to almost never have to say goodbye to anyone. When I left college, I thought I would never see those people again. I never would have dreamed that I now can keep up with almost all my college friends so easily. Now, grandparents can easily keep up with what their grandchildren are doing halfway around the world and important news can be shared among friends and family instantly.

There is incredible value in that. I am thankful for that. But as I look back over the past year, I have come to the conclusion that social media adds a stress into my life that I just don’t need.

The stress comes from the barrage of ideology that flows like water out of a broken fire hydrant: the politics, the religious dogma, the belief systems about any number of things. A huge problem with social media is that it allows everyone to air their ideology. People used to know better than to bring up those things in conversation because they knew it would hurt relationships. For some reason, we are under the delusion that the rules change on Facebook.

I have come to a conclusion about all that ideology and it is this: I don’t agree with a lot of it. Honestly, I may disagree with most of what I read on Facebook. And here is the scary thing about it: most of the people that post that ideology are sort of like me. They are people I enjoy being with in real life. I like them. We could go out to eat and it would be fun. And yet, if I am being honest, I sometimes find myself not liking them because of what I read on Facebook. It is not just that I can’t handle opinions I don’t agree with. It is just that the constant barrage of those opinions wears on me.

Let me be honest here. I put the blame mostly on myself. I should be able to deal with all that stuff. Many of you handle it gracefully. I am not there yet. I read one thing after another and it eventually affects the way I see people. Sometimes, I read something I just can’t resist responding to. Regardless of how politely I try to respond, that is always still the wrong move. And sometimes, I know that I post ideology myself that affects other people in the same way.

Like I said, I blame myself mostly for this. I should be able to handle social media better. I just can’t…

So last week, I was thinking about what I wanted to do in 2015 because I don’t want that angst in my life any more. I considered joining the exodus from Facebook but I really can’t because my Facebook page for music is so important to me. I then thought about setting up a separate anonymous account just to manage the professional page which would allow me to get off Facebook on a personal level.

And then it occurred to me that I could just keep my Facebook account but use their tools to hide ideology. I don’t unfriend people but I can unfollow them and let’s just say that my news feed is a lot cleaner now. It is mostly full of pictures of children playing, inspirational sayings, and wittiness from people I actually know.

I like it. At the risk of sounding too much like my parents and grandparents, it reminds me of a simpler world. I will have to go somewhere else to get my fill of the debate over whether Obama is a Muslim and/or a US citizen. Ditto for the conspiracy theories. And I will have to find other sources about how essential oils cure Ebola and what God thinks about music.

I am more than OK with that. It is refreshing.