What does it mean to have a podium? It means that you have the power to potentially influence people, that you have a megaphone now, even if it's only on your own page. Unless you have been blocked or filtered out, you have the potential to show up on hundreds of (or more) feeds. Here's the trick, though: EVERYONE has a megaphone, which means there's a lot of shouting to be heard. Your voice is out there, sure, but there's still a great deal of difficulty in truly being heard, as we all wade through the sea of information to find the voices we want to listen to.
What to do with this newfound power? That is the million dollar question. I cannot answer that for you. I find for myself that the answer is fluid, that I have different things to say on any given day and otherwise I don't have to wrap it in a pretty, GRAND PURPOSE kind of package. Many seem to flounder in finding the difference between social presence and power. Worse yet, they might inadvertently turn off their audience by breaking some of the unwritten rules of online social interaction.
This is not to say that everyone on social media has this mindset specifically (many people are happy to share a recipe or family pictures without engaging in any of the following, for example, while others are vocal without falling into these pitfalls), but that there are many who abuse or do not know what to do with this situation. What this list represents are some of the results of this culture shift and/or some faux pas many people do not realize they are committing. This article is not to specifically condemn anyone but instead to bring consideration and awareness when comporting with others out there in the digital arena, why others might have muted your feed or don't respond the way you feel they should.
Re-Posting without Fact Checking
Ugh. I've seen articles spread like wildfire that are patently false. Unfortunately, the only time we collectively stop to consider the sources or the potential facts of an article/video/etc. is on April 1st. Sometimes, too, it's apparent that people didn't even read/view the link in question before sending it on. There is a healthy bit of skepticism that is missing here. Every article should be subject to the same scrutiny as the ones on April 1st. It seems that we care more about who shared it than whether or not it has validity. I've been guilty of this one, too. A couple of hints though: consider the source itself (is it, say, The Onion? or a site that has a clear and obvious bias?), consider the date of the source (if it happened, say, three years ago, it probably has nothing to do with this current whatever), remember that sensationalist titles should be suspect by default (e.g. "Documents Prove without a Doubt that [effigy of choice] is a Stinking Liar"), and perform a quick search, looking for CREDITABLE sources that confirm it.
There's a special subcategory for this one: Missing Persons posts. Is there a date on this post or how can you otherwise be sure you're not spreading around information from 2012? Is there any contact information? Is that contact information any kind of credible? If there is neither a date nor someone to contact, it's quite possibly just a search for likes and shares. Yes, I think most people consider when they share these that they're doing something small but helpful, but I need to put this out there: what if the person who made that original post is an abusive party? What if you are helping someone find their victim again, after said victim finally got themselves and/or their children away? Unless you know the situation, I would suggest not passing these things along, being on the edge of caution.
Half-Baked Theories
This is similar to not checking sources, but significant enough to warrant its own section. The distinction here is that there is a difference between passing information on and writing up a new rationale or explanation of your own that doesn't have a logical leg to stand on. If you were giving a speech in front of a live crowd, chances are you might at least spend some time considering what you wanted to say, practice, and otherwise make sure that your information was presented as cohesively and persuasively as possible. It's so easy now to make a glib statement in a tweet that we hit send without fully thinking it through. I would never claim that people haven't said stupid things before Facebook, but now there are more speakers, producing comments and posts at a rapid speed, so I would argue that there are more stupid things being said as a whole, in a documented, public place. I did not know how many child psychologists, and animal behavior specialists I knew until everyone had something to say about Harambe (~sarcasm flag~). And everyone was an air traffic control expert, lawyer, or department of transportation guru now that United Airlines has had their PR fiasco. The parents should have done X, the airline should have done Y, and none of these assertions really help. They are an attempt to insert yourself into the situation, to be seen and involved in something that does not involve you. When it's so easy to press send and weigh in on a situation, it seems that less and less people consider what they are saying and whether or not it has any logical basis or sometimes even makes sense. For example, I submit the following:
Above, Allison states, in not so many words, that we should just get over it and get a better job. Her outlook on the situation according to her comments is what we should do instead, despite all of our very real experiences and realties regarding my healthcare needs, is that we are wrong for being worried in the first place. The truth of the matter is, there is no job that we could get that would properly cover all of my medical expenses. We actually have great insurance, but it is still very expensive to keep me healthy and functioning, which is how we keep our insurance in the first place. And we know we're some of the lucky ones. One bad day--either a surprise cancer diagnosis or an accident at work--can be the death knell on a family's opportunities and finances. All of those careful decisions, though, and the resulting burdens are glibly dismissed in her retorts.
This leads me to an important subcategory: Yourself/One Story as the Only Truth
This is similar to not checking sources, but significant enough to warrant its own section. The distinction here is that there is a difference between passing information on and writing up a new rationale or explanation of your own that doesn't have a logical leg to stand on. If you were giving a speech in front of a live crowd, chances are you might at least spend some time considering what you wanted to say, practice, and otherwise make sure that your information was presented as cohesively and persuasively as possible. It's so easy now to make a glib statement in a tweet that we hit send without fully thinking it through. I would never claim that people haven't said stupid things before Facebook, but now there are more speakers, producing comments and posts at a rapid speed, so I would argue that there are more stupid things being said as a whole, in a documented, public place. I did not know how many child psychologists, and animal behavior specialists I knew until everyone had something to say about Harambe (~sarcasm flag~). And everyone was an air traffic control expert, lawyer, or department of transportation guru now that United Airlines has had their PR fiasco. The parents should have done X, the airline should have done Y, and none of these assertions really help. They are an attempt to insert yourself into the situation, to be seen and involved in something that does not involve you. When it's so easy to press send and weigh in on a situation, it seems that less and less people consider what they are saying and whether or not it has any logical basis or sometimes even makes sense. For example, I submit the following:
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| There are many, many examples that I can point to in this conversation. |
This leads me to an important subcategory: Yourself/One Story as the Only Truth
Mathematically speaking, one cannot calculate an average without at least three data points. And I could go on for a LONG time on how correlation does not equate to causation. These are the kinds of arguments that hinge entirely around "well, this is my experience so this is how it always is." In the above example, Allison states that she doesn't lose any sleep worrying about things so Andy losing sleep is because he's wrong and also states twice that they don't want to be covered by insurance (spoken to people that have a very visceral understanding of how expensive healthcare can be, no less). This point gets a little squiffy in some situations, because one friend telling me that they had bad service at such-and-such a place will give me pause, but I don't tend to apply this to large situations. In any case, asserting that this is the way that something is or should be for everyone based on that personal idea or experience is trying to govern everyone else into your way of thinking with or without data to back you up or grace to allow for differences of opinion. Great example of this is the idea that poor people "deserve" to be poor. There are SO MANY complexities in poverty and all kinds of fantastic data that help clarify that there are cycles and patterns and even just bad luck (getting sick or some other health issue within the family, for example) that lead to this, rather than the assumption "oh, they just made bad decisions." Or even on a small spectrum, a barrista spilled coffee on me once does not mean that all Starbucks employees are callous, vengeful hipsters. The world is more complex than that.
Also, it is worth mentioning that there is a big difference between an opinion and a belief, and I'm meaning the "well, it's just my opinion" cop-out in arguments. "I like chocolate more than vanilla" is an opinion; "I think that non-white people are lesser than white people" is something completely different and patently racist. It's uncomfortable, but beliefs need to be challenged from time to time, to see if they're worth keeping. In the meanwhile, we cannot blindly accept things that conform to our biases because it makes us feel good.
Personal Attacks as an Argument Clincher (ad hominem)
This tends to happen most often in either political or religious posts, as far as being part of the conversation. Tempers fly and the debate is lost into a tumble of assertions about how so-and-so is a terrible person.
See also the comment above from the first screenshot series, specifically the "Maybe you need to stop being so entitled."
After seeing one individual attack on a friend's posts repeatedly, I started into the following:
Is it arrogant to quote myself? Ah, well, here it is anyway: "Attacking the person is not the same as attacking the argument; in fact, it cheapens or distracts from the point you're making. We can have respectful discourse without resorting to personal attacks." I don't call Bart a cruel person or a jerk or make any spoken assumptions about him--I simply point out a couple of concerns I have with his printed behavior. Even with Allison in that top screenshot, her actions are the problem, not that she is "a horrible person."
Poor Grammar/Spelling/Capitalization
I automatically mentally dock an argument or post a few points if they cannot take time to spell out words like "be," "are," and "you." If your argument is slurred together in a run-on sentence, the lack of clarity also detracts from you point, as well as distracting away from the whole conversation as people then subsequently point and laugh at egregious typos, again stripping authority out of your own argument by not doing a simple proofread (excuse me for a moment while I double-check my entire blog post). In the first screenshot of this article, the "Reax" Allison uses certainly doesn't help her cause.
I will also include the use of ALL CAPS. It still surprises me how many people do not know that this is the computer equivalent of yelling at someone. Yes, the occasional word can be put into caps for emphasis, but DON'T GO AROUND YELLING AT PEOPLE UNLESS YOU MEAN IT. See? Ugh, I don't even like looking at as an example. No one wants to be yelled at, even from a computer screen. Yes, the emotion might be extreme, but please use sparingly all the same--regardless of the intent, it does turn people off.
Game Invites
Stop. Just stop. These have gotten a little more subtle, switching to "So-and-so needs such-and-such for their game," but the intent is still to try to get you into the game.
This tends to happen most often in either political or religious posts, as far as being part of the conversation. Tempers fly and the debate is lost into a tumble of assertions about how so-and-so is a terrible person.
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Extra points if you call people out for Name Calling earlier in the conversation
Double points for doing it in the same sentence
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After seeing one individual attack on a friend's posts repeatedly, I started into the following:
Poor Grammar/Spelling/Capitalization
I automatically mentally dock an argument or post a few points if they cannot take time to spell out words like "be," "are," and "you." If your argument is slurred together in a run-on sentence, the lack of clarity also detracts from you point, as well as distracting away from the whole conversation as people then subsequently point and laugh at egregious typos, again stripping authority out of your own argument by not doing a simple proofread (excuse me for a moment while I double-check my entire blog post). In the first screenshot of this article, the "Reax" Allison uses certainly doesn't help her cause.
I will also include the use of ALL CAPS. It still surprises me how many people do not know that this is the computer equivalent of yelling at someone. Yes, the occasional word can be put into caps for emphasis, but DON'T GO AROUND YELLING AT PEOPLE UNLESS YOU MEAN IT. See? Ugh, I don't even like looking at as an example. No one wants to be yelled at, even from a computer screen. Yes, the emotion might be extreme, but please use sparingly all the same--regardless of the intent, it does turn people off.
Game Invites
Stop. Just stop. These have gotten a little more subtle, switching to "So-and-so needs such-and-such for their game," but the intent is still to try to get you into the game.
Yes, we are a culture of likes and attention. Can anyone remember back to a time when advertisements were not asking for likes on Facebook? When you weren't asked to prove your fervency to a cause by sharing/liking some status? Vaguebooking is a specific ploy for attention, that is fishing for comments or conversation, demanding that people be engaged. Examples of this include, but are not limited to, the following:
- "Ugh, everything sucks. :("
- "Wondering if it is worth it"
- "So down right now"
- "You don't know how good you had it"
- "Today was incredibly weird"
- **A series of angry emoticons**
- "I have good news. :)"
- "Nice means means people walking all over you" and/or "No good deed goes unpunished"
- "Well, that went well..."
- "Why are all [insert group of persons or profession here] such jerks?"
- "Don't even ask me how I'm doing today."
- Any non-sales related statement that ends with "Message me for details."
These are all formatted specifically to have someone reply back asking for sympathy or an explanation so that they can tell the whole story, instead of just stating the situation. There are subtle forms of this, too, where specific details are left out just so someone has to ask about it (e.g. "I have a new job!" without any information so that the comments section has to then ask "Where is it at?"). It's a low-key kind of manipulation that rubs me the wrong way.
Complete Lack of Filter
I find that everyone's day to day life can be interesting, that I don't know someone's experience. But there is a difference between being honest and being a jerk or being on the unnecessary/gross side of transparent (e.g. "Check out this poo I made today!"). Being authentic to oneself is one thing; being passive aggressive is another. There is a difference between saying what's on your mind and releasing private information that maybe would be best handled with a conversation with the individual first.
Clickbait/Sharebait
Think about article titles as a broad category. Yes, in order to get advertising revenue and all else, these are measured in clicks, shares, likes, and traffic in general.
- "I bet no one will share/like" or "I hope I get just one share"
- Can a veteran/baby with Downs Syndrom/dog missing a leg get a like?
- Share if you think I'm cute!
- 1 Like = 1 AMEN
- Number 7 will shock you!
- You won't believe what [random celebrity] looks like now!
- [Picture of record player, lawnmower, potato peeler or whatever] Share if you know what this is!
- Anything that is structured as a poll, e.g. like=yes, share/angry face=no
You know what? A dog doesn't care if they get a share--the person re-posting the picture does. And an angry face still counts as a "like" in metrics. I take particular grievance with the "I bet no one will have the guts to repost" or "no one will like this picture" kind of posts, again, because this is the low-key manipulation. This is a different way of farming for attention, whether it is for a company or personal gratification. Wanting that reinforcement through clicks and likes is a real thing. Hell, I check my blog hits all day when I put a new post out there. But I can also keep in perspective that these are not necessarily a reflection of my self-worth.
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Again, I am not writing this as a cease and desist kind of manifesto. These are habits that have grown as part of online culture. However, I do want at least draw some attention to them, to help make us aware of some of the pitfalls that we fall into and, maybe, choose to avoid them. There are solid psychological reasons why we do these things, and there are solid psychological reasons why they annoy us, too. We don't have to resort to tricks to demand attention, but when we're working toward finding our own voice with this new-found platform, some social guidelines are still important.
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