Social Media Things That Irk.
Irk: to irk, irritate or annoy. Irksome. Annoying. Irritating. Being an observer of people, this all I feel when discussing the following phenomena I see almost daily on social media. I see so many of each of these, that a couple of you may be offended. I mean no offense, but attempt to offer insight from my perspective in order to serve the public interest. What follows, ladies and gentlemen, are things that irk me. Stay tuned through the end for an unexpected plot twist!
Conditional Compliments
These are usually about a spouse, parent, or child. A long testimonial about how awesome this other person is gets written, and is then tempered by a comment that will be something like, “although we have our ups and downs,” or “it hasn’t always been smooth sailing,” or something like that. Let me go on record as saying that if you want to compliment another person, and I sincerely hope that you do, to offer that compliment untempered. “He/she is great, most of the time,” is like blowing up a balloon and then letting the air back out. All you have left is an empty balloon.
People need to be built up. We all need to know that somebody loves and appreciates us. It’s a tremendous use of your social media platform. Just don’t feel like you need to balance the scales – there are plenty of others out there willing to do that.
Re-Posting of your child(ren)’s accomplishments
Now before you get your feathers ruffled, I really enjoy keeping up with you and your children on social media. That is one of the reasons I read it every day, so that I can stay up to date on you and your family. I want to know when your child graduates high school, and where they are going to college. I want to know how successful they have been at gymnastics and baseball and academically, and how many grandchildren you have. I can stay in touch with my friends this way. This is not what I’m talking about here. Neither do I mean the FB Memories thing that comes up sometimes. What I am specifically addressing is those “special moments” that we celebrated in 2011 that keep coming back around every year. I’m glad your baby played on the 10-year old All Star team, but they are juniors in college now.
All of the above leads me to where I really want to take this post, which is that we don’t need posts and likes and retweets and emojis on social media to validate our identity. I say this as the writer of this blog that determines the successfulness of a post based on the number of hits I get. You and I are more than what other people think of the snippets of our lives that we choose to share online.
The Best Assistance I Can Provide
On Mother’s Day this year, I was fortunate enough to visit my son’s church, Crestview Baptist Church, in Georgetown, Texas. The sermon I heard that day was not a typical Mother’s Day sermon, but specifically targeted social media and the dangers involved when women (remember, it was Mother’s Day) gain their identity by how many likes and shares their posts receive on Facebook. Of course it applies to men, teenagers, any people group.
My prayer for you today is to take a half an hour and listen to this sermon, provided here: http://crestviewbaptist.church/mommies-and-the-trinity/
It changed my perspective, and I’m not even a mommy! Pastor Jordan Cobb does a fantastic job. Remember, you are created in the image of God Almighty, not Facebook!