Facebook Facepalm

Generally speaking, there are two things you do not talk about in casual conversation, Religion and Politics. This is due to the fact that they are, and forever will be, hotly debated issues within any social community. For whatever reason, when these are brought into a conversation, people quickly become offensive and start to attack the other person, instead of the opposing viewpoint they hold.

Have you ever been in a situation, perhaps at a bar or dinner, where these are brought to light? Unless you have a group of well acquainted people, it usually becomes two hotheads going blow-for-blow with personal attacks and egos to take the punishment. For the rest of the room, it becomes an increasingly awkward situation and general discomfort sets in among the guests, with it quickly escalating to just "Get me the hell out of here!".

The entry is "Facebook Facepalm", what does this have to do with anything?!

Facebook is the vanguard site when it comes to social interaction. It also happens to be a place to showcase all of our "Facebook Friends" aka people we never really see but we know them somehow so we have them as friends. For most of us college kids, about 90% of our high school classmates are now "facebook friends". Occasionally we write them happy birthday or "remember that one time..." remarks, but for the most part we keep our distances. With Facebook's "Live News Feed" we get an almost real-time ticker of status updates, mixed in with various pictures, notes, links, and videos. With these status updates, on the "live news feed" we have now created casual conversation. You may see someone with a status like "Going to see Zombieland" and make a comment about the success or failure of the movie in your opinion. These short interactions are the equivalent of small talk.

So lets recap shall we? We have a social environment of people, most of who's relationships between each other can be classified as acquaintances. We also have very brief contacts with them, dealing with trivial things. These contacts can also be called...casual conversations!. Shocking, I know. Now lets just jump back up to that top paragraph, never bring up religion or politics. Easy enough right? Evidently not...

Every day I see politically charged statuses from people, mostly not positively critical, as to start a discussion point, but just critical, like "look who tanked the economy" or "That man in the Oval Office is an idiot!". Why would you post this? You don't go up to a guy at the bar and say "Man, that Obama is an asshole isn't he??". Well...maybe you do, either from common sense or experience you're aware you have a 50/50 shot at getting decked. Anyway, if you type on someone's wall, and it just happens to show up on a news feed, that's fine. It's understood that it is a conversation taking place between two people. To put it as a status update is the same as pulling the bar stunt above. You are inviting people to criticize and fight with you. Maybe you want that, but for all of us who like our peaceful Facebook, we just think its old and gets annoying. There is a time and place for everything, and really, "Obama is an asshole." really doesn't relate to your status.*

So go ahead, say you're in love or that you lost your car keys for the 4th time this month. I'll laugh or congratulate you. Post those lovely song lyrics about stamina, or lost love, or making that green. They might be annoying, but they're mostly harmless. But please, for everyone's sake, leave the politics at the log-in screen.

S.T.


*Unless, you just got pranked by Obama, then you could probably post it. I'm not friends with anyone that connected, so lets just say, status updates aren't the place for politics.