THE SEVEN DEADLY TOPICS ON SOCIAL MEDIA

We all know the list of the SEVEN DEADLY TOPICS:

Politics, Sex, Reproductive Issues, Environment, Energy, Animal Rights and Religion. 


Those topics where arguments WILL ensue at the Thanksgiving table.  These are the grenades tossed into the playground of play nice. Where you really WANT to cause an eruption.


These topics and their sub issues like the self-righteous Food Police Topics such as Organic, Veganism, "Chemicals," cause people to become unhinged and fly around the room backwards firing shots across the bow and worse. Even Gluten free is becoming emotional and political!  Selling sugared soda is now a crime in some Utah school districts.  Free speech does not exist in the USA, and less so on the above topics unless you want to actively lose "friends."


NOT FOR SOCIAL MEDIA.  Discuss them, and expect controversy and unfriending.  And maybe a Facebook Hangover.

Facebook involved in 30% of Divorces?

I usually refer to Facebook as a "THING."  I think that designation is still correct.  Check this out.  Seems as though the expression "too much information" applies especially to Facebook.  The article says that Facebook is cited in 30% of divorce filings.

Unfriendings happen.
JA

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/mar/08/facebook-us-divorces

WHAT IS A FACEBOOK HANGOVER?

A Facebook Hangover is the feeling a day later about your "friends" that actually went after you with veracity for stating an opinion on a sensitive subject.

We all know the list of the SEVEN DEADLY TOPICS: Politics, Sex, Reproductive Issues, Environment, Energy, Animal Rights and Religion.  These are like a new version of SPAM to me.  


I look at Facebook as the Thanksgiving Table.  I think Twitter is a far better stage to publicly shout in the town square if one feels the need shriek, squawk or do the Tarzan yell.  

I found recently that it can take just two exchanges for me to want unfriend someone.  Frequently this involves someone UNKNOWN to me.  A "friend" of a "friend."  Frequently some insensitive boor stomps into a conversation and starts using profanity.  I do not seek this out or want it on my wall.

I have unfriended about five percent of friends because of their refusal to be civil on Facebook or their friends were not civil.

It is is hard for me to sit on my hands regarding this new medium.  I am a participant by nature and do very poorly with spectator sports.

Regarding the sensitive topics, remember your Conservative friends will lambaste you for taking Liberal positions.  Your Liberal friends will lambaste you for taking Conservative positions.  Me, politely asking for political neutrality gets it from all sides, as politics is a BLOOD SPORT and no adult in the US wants to be told what to do.  So I unfriend and my wall looks much better now.

If you are intent on posting the SEVEN DEADLY TOPICS, please spare me the misery and unfriend me now.

We learn more about this Adolescent Technology.

What is Micro Targeting and are they Targeting me?

Micro Targeting.  These are new and not popularized techniques that troll social media for all kinds of purposes, including Political..  Most likely you are not aware of the them.  Check these out:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10304310903003270

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microtargeting

FACEBOOK AND POTENTIAL LAND MINES

Bernie wrote: "An interesting take: become part of a social networking site, but not want to hear what your friends really think and are passionate about. HUH? While I don't agree with every viewpoint espoused by from friends it's interesting to hear what's out there. I also like the links that are posted and often learn a lot from them. If I'm not interested in something, I can always skip over it. What's the problem with that?"


Some comments on the topic of Politics on Facebook. 


Hi Bernie, always great to hear from you.  This blog has enough space to treat the subject properly.  I have encouraged folks to create their own Political blogs and channel the discussion off Facebook.  It is too limiting and plain inappropriate as I will explain.  I am frequently challenged with sitting on my hands and not responding to some things I consider inflammatory or outlandishly incorrect.  


 My Facebook friends are for the most part, not true friends, but in fact casual acquaintances.  You are an exception in that we have had dinner many times at various functions.  In fact, my closest friends are not on ANY social media.  So here is the rub: there is a popular saying that you should never discuss religion or politics with family.  The list needs to be extended to include energy, environment,  animal rights, organic food, sex and reproductive issues.  THESE ARE LAND MINE ISSUES and a lot of folks are just waiting to go off.  The country is more polarized than ever and less informed and educated, particularly on scientific issues.


I have extensive experience running an invitation only political blog among a group of about 35 folks that I know well.  I started it after 9/11 when I saw the need to better communicate.  I made some generalizations then and got my eyes gouged out by about a half dozen folks "(friends)" that disagreed with some of my positions.  Fortunately, my eyes grew back.  I learned a lot from that experience, the hard way.  Over time I was able to regain them in my social circle.


Two years ago, I went to a funeral where a friend's parent died.  The first thing he said to me at the funeral " I HATE {YOUR POLITICAL BLOG}!  So yes, there can be a lot of risk and problems with discussing the above issues in public.

I have strong opinions on most things but they are not for public dissemination.  I think TOO MUCH INFORMATION is an excuse for people to hate you when you don't mean it.    From my public writing, it should be hard for people to tell if I am really Chris Matthews, Joe Lieberman or Sean Hannity.

WALTER CRONKITE

Follow up to one of the last posts.  I grew up with Walter Cronkite on the news.  The news than was three channels and a developing PBS.  Vietnam was dividing the country then.  We have never quite gotten over that.  But Cronkite before he retired, was absolutely A-POLITICAL.  You NEVER GOT HIS OPINION.  


That was GREAT and an admirable trait, unlike much of what I find in so called Social Media.  See earlier posts for what I think are topics that are inappropriate for Facebook, etc.  Below are Cronkite quotes I think are still VERY RELEVANT in our Brave New World regarding an "Adolescent Technology."
JA

Walter Cronkite was the anchor of the evening TV news show called “The CBS Evening News” for many years (from 1962 until 1981) and became known as “the most trusted man in America.” 

- Television is a high-impact medium. It does some things no other force can do-transmitting electronic pictures through the air. Still, as an explored, comprehensive medium, it is not a substitute for print.

- In seeking truth you have to get both sides of a story

- Everything is being compressed into tiny tablets. You take a little pill of news every day – 23 minutes – and that’s supposed to be enough.

- Our job is only to hold up the mirror – to tell and show the public what has happened.

- Objective journalism and an opinion column are about as similar as the Bible and Playboy magazine.

- I am dumbfounded that there hasn’t been a crackdown with the libel and slander laws on some of these would-be writers and reporters on the Internet.

- I think it is absolutely essential in a democracy to have competition in the media, a lot of competition, and we seem to be moving away from that.

- The great sadness of my life is that I never achieved the hour newscast, which would not have been twice as good as the half-hour newscast, but many times as good.

- There’s a little more ego involved in these jobs than people might realize.

- I can’t imagine a person becoming a success who doesn’t give this game of life everything he’s got.

- “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost the country.”  President Lyndon B. Johnson

- It is a seldom proffered argument as to the advantages of a free press that it has a major function in keeping the government itself informed as to what the government is doing.

- Errol Flynn died on a 70-foot boat with a 17-year-old girl. Walter has always wanted to go that way, but he’s going to have to settle for a 17-footer with a 70-year-old.

- When you’re bringing in a fairly unknown candidate challenging a sitting president, the population needs a lot more information than reduced coverage provides.

- We are not educated well enough to perform the necessary act of intelligently selecting our leaders.
I don’t think those things live forever with the public. They’re more likely to live with us journalists than the public itself. - GOING OUT ON A LIMB: { Call me arrogant but I think both are pretty supremely stupid, biased and uninformed.  We know more about Dancing with the Stars than where the Straits of Hormuz are. - JA }

LEGAL NOTICES ON TV ADS

I do not understand the legalese nature of the country and TV media.

I despise the nature of our litigious society and I understand the "reason" the language is ostensibly "required."

The TV is inherently NOT a medium for detail.  Walter Cronkite used to emphasize that the CBS Evening News was merely a headline service.  "You need to read more to follow up."  I don't hear much of that thinking anymore.  Since then, the legal departments of the advertisers ignored any wisdom inherent in that and instead shove all this garbage in front of us to "cover their buns."  And we swallow hard.

I am pounded on a daily basis by cable TV advertising, almost memorizing the black box warnings for  pharmaceuticals I can NEVER be prescribed because of gender.   If you hear the theme from Gilligans island enough, you can sing it.

If I change the station, I am bombarded by ads for ORGANIC STUFF declaring that it will make you feel better but there is a really fine print disclaimer declaring "the FDA has not determined that this product can cure or prevent any condition."

And the all time favorite, the car commercial doing the jackass stunts labeled with {Professional Driver on closed course - do not attempt}

The technology of TV helps to diminish the value of the stupid fine print.  Not only can you not read it, it further elevates the value of the Tom Waits lyric from STEP RIGHT UP:  "THE LARGE PRINT GIVETH,  THE SMALL PRINT TAKETH AWAY." 


In any case, it is all useless and well intentioned noise.  Common sense will not be distributed this way.  Let the Darwin Award be distributed to those who are too stupid to know what is actually dangerous.  They are distractions from REAL problems.  The road to hell is paved with good intentions, by the LAWYERS.  THANK GOD, you were warned by the legal requirement.


John Stossel has a couple of good books on the subject, including the awful warnings on ladders.