Social Media And Me

I haven't posted in a while.  There have been significant changes in my life.

I had a kid.

Yes, I am now a father to a baby boy we named Theodore.  :)  So, I haven't really had time to post in a while.  However, as I browse social media, I was inspired to post.  Perhaps, it was my Facebook page (also named "The Editorialistic View") informing me that I hadn't posted in a while.  And conveniently enough, Facebook (more specifically my news feed on Facebook) entered my cross hairs.

So, I will start this post on what Facebook means to me.  After all, I have been a member of Facebook since it became more than just a Harvard thing. When I signed up, you still had to be a member of a college, and being I was a student at Dakota State University, I had to use my college email address to sign up.  Now, it has expanded to a social networking platform that dominates the field.  People have even created Facebook profiles for their pets.  At first I signed up just to be in contact with others... to make friends.

Now, Facebook (and all social media for that matter) has been a way to keep in contact with family and friends I, otherwise, don't communicate with on a daily basis.  Facebook is a great way for me to see pictures of friends and family.  I have family with kids that I see pictures of on occasion.  I get comical and humorous quips from people just out to give their peers (as I'll colloquially refer to "friends and family" for the duration of this) a reason to smile or chuckle.  I get to see what is on people's minds.  If they are down or sad, they talk about it.  Sometimes the chuckle helps sad people feel better.

And now, social media has turned.  It is no longer the platform of keeping up with peers.  It is now political ramblings, memes from people who can't spell, chain posts, and links upon links from sponsored content that tricks you into never ending pages of ads and overly drawn out articles that are there just for ad revenue. 

For one, I will admit, I didn't vote this last election.  I didn't really care who won or who lost.  It was a choice between an egotist, or a person whose soul purpose was to be the first female president.  None were really the best for the nation, and I didn't feel shame for not voting.  I've always felt my vote doesn't matter because the votes are determined by the electorate, not by the people.  If looking at popular vote, Hillary would have won it.  But I didn't care then, and guess what?  I still don't care.  Political posts are ones that I either: A) quickly scroll past or B) hide from my news feed.  If a person's posts are nothing but political and nothing  I care about, they disappear magically from my feed.  Now, they may argue, "But this is stuff you need to know," or "This is important for what is going on right now."  I do watch the news and do read news articles.  So, it really isn't THAT important for me to read on Facebook.  I prefer my news without bias and complaints. 

Memes are now part of social media culture.  For those not in the know, they are images with funny captions.  And they quickly become viral.  To me, they are sort of a plague.  People post memes that are horribly misspelled, grammatically incorrect, and say NOTHING relevant about them.  They are a post that, to me, lacks substance.  They are a lazy post that can be humorous and actually worth seeing, but they can also be stupid and completely pointless.  In my opinion, memes would be posted with thought, not just thrown about because you hadn't posted something in 5 minutes.  They should be intelligent.  Memes exist that have false quotes from celebrities who have passed on.  Those are the worst kind in my opinion.  Those are memes that stick words into people's mouths who don't have the ability to deny or refute those quotes.  There are A LOT of memes, for instance, that have quotes that George Carlin allegedly made (and almost all of those quotes are fake).  If a person has passed on, no more memes should be created with his/her likeness.  They should be retired and not remembered in that disrespectful manner.

Chain posts are just dangerous and any one who passes those on should stop.  Chain posts create long lists that can be used for malicious purposes.  It is a form of farming that can result in people getting spam.  A lot of these posts are used for "like-farming."  They tug at people's heart strings and cause people to like the posts.  After a lot of people have liked the post, they change the content and it can either download spyware to a person's computer or link to spammy content.  For more information on this, click here to read an article on "like-farming."  There are some legitimate ones out there, who use like-farming as a way to generate buzz about their business and draw in more customers, but there are others that are there just to put spam on your computers.  Do not share posts that are not trust-worthy, and do not tag me in like-farming posts.

The sponsored click-bait that Facebook throws on my news feed is really frustrating.  I can't help myself to occasionally reading them, but they are stupid at the same time.  I, actually, feel a sense of shame for reading them.  Luckily there are people who have ventured into the abyss and summarized the post so I don't have to waste my time on 20-30 needlessly drawn out, ad-infested pages of crap just to get to the one relevant page at the end.  I don't have the time, I don't have the patience, and I don't want to be spammed with ads every single page I read.  Trying to read those on my phone causes my phone to claim to have a virus and redirect me to a fake "Google Play" page trying to get me to download spyware to my phone.  Those posts NEED to STOP.  The problem is, they take up a good chunk of my news feed.

Now, if dumb memes, political ramblings, chain posts, and click bait sponsored content was to disappear from my news feed, I would find that my news feed is pretty empty.  It may seem like a sad existence, but it isn't.  The occasional relevant post that I get from people does brighten my day.  It really doesn't take much.  Social media still does remain a great way to keep in contact with people whom I don't see or talk to on a frequent basis.  Even the occasional meme does have relevance if properly placed (and properly spelled).  Sometimes, how a person is feeling is best summed up by a meme.  There are posts that I feel have no place on Facebook or any other social media site, but it is one of those things that can't be helped.  While there are people who are obsessively political, they may also be peers that I can't just unfriend, block, or hide because in the end, they are still peers and occasionally they'll post something that is relevant.  I just choose not to read.

So, I choose to use social media to do what I feel it is intended for.  To be social, in a manner that is most comfortable for me.  I like being able to keep in contact with peers I don't see, and I will continue to use it for that purpose.  Feel free to comment to me every once in a while, and I will respond.  Feel free to respond to this post if you have an opinion you want to share.  Thank you for taking the time to read!!

Relationship Advice in a Social World

"Nothing breaks the bridges of love, except a weak foundation." - self

Yes, that is a quote I came up with several years ago.  If you have a relationship with a strong foundation, then you have a love that can never be broken. 

However, nowadays, about 50% of all marriages end in divorce.  How is this possible?  What is going on?  Is my quote inaccurate now???

I will contend that my quote is still just as accurate as it has always been, but there are now changes that make the foundations of relationships a little weaker.  How do we build indestructible foundations to create this permanent love?  Allow me to provide a little advice (with a little modern flair).

First of all, any foundation must be solid.  To build a solid foundation, we can not build the outer layers first and then fail to build the core within the relationship.  To build a solid core, you must first get to know the person you are with.  This is important.  A lot of relationships jump right into the sack too soon.  This creates a relationship without a solid core.  You have a relationship, but you don't really know the person you are with.  In this case, you are playing a gambling game.  So, if intimacy isn't the way to know someone, then what is?

The answer to everything in a relationship is: communication.  Plain and simple.  You must communicate with the person you are with.  You can not build any foundation without communication.  To build the core of the relationship, you must communicate with the person you are with.

Once you learn who the person you are with is, then what comes next?  Trust.  You must build trust with the person you are with.  Trust is one of things that is easy to lose.  It is difficult to gain, and easy to lose.  How do we build trust?

Again... communication.  You must continue to communicate with your significant other.  Do not be afraid to let down your guard and let this person in.  Revealing yourself to your partner allows your partner to trust you.  But trust is something that needs to be maintained.  If you've let your partner in, but fail to keep the lines of communication open, your partner will start to feel like you are hiding something.  Once that trust is lost, it is HARD to get that trust back.  The perfect analogy to this is like trying to push a rock up a hill.  You need to keep pushing that rock upwards.  If you slip up, you have to rebuild that momentum to get moving forward again.  And if you let it go completely, it rolls back down and you lose that trust completely.

The more trust you build, the stronger your foundation becomes.

Now, communication still continues to be important.  Even after you trust each other, you must be prepared to fix any issue that arises. Fights will happen.  This is normal.  What is important is, again... communication (WITH EACH OTHER!!!!).  You must communicate your point of view to your partner, and your partner should communicate his/her point of view with you.  Then find some type of solution to it.  Now, this could be coming up with a compromising solution where you give a little, and your partner gives a little, but together, you reach a common agreement, or it could be a give and take, where you let your partner have his/her way this time.

Now, note the all caps in the previous paragraph.  In today's day and age, people think it is acceptable to "have it out" on social media sites.  This is a BAD, BAD decision.  When you duke it out on social media, you are inviting friends into your fight.  This means that you are NOT communicating with each other, but are instead communicating to your friends, and looking for validation behind your point of view.  What you are doing is building an army and going to war against your partner.  Does this sound like a couple who wants things to work???

No.

The days of social media have made it harder for relationships to work.  Couples who fight now pit their friends against their partner, and their partner against their friends.  It turns into a complicated mess.  If I have a friend who is fighting it out on Facebook with their partner, I will therefore feel pressured to side with my friend over my friend's partner, even though my friend's partner may be right.  And in the end: no communication ever happens with each other.  No solutions are ever come up with.  No one comes up with a resolution, therefore the fighting escalates.

You can not solve a problem by building an army and going to war against your partner.  Hoping to destroy your partner KILLS your relationship.  The bridge is broke.  There is no repairing it.  What you need to do is mend those paths together.  You need to work together with your partner to patch up the road.  And to do that, you must actually put down the weapons, get rid of the army, and practice diplomacy with each other, and actually fix the problem.  No war was ever "peacefully" resolved with killing.  In the end, peace treaties are signed when two people actually get together and talk.

Communication is the key to everything, in the end.  And today, people do not communicate enough with each other.  People are spending too much time apart, getting caught up in their own lives, and dealing with their own problems.  Remember, in a successful relationship, your problems are also your partner's problems.  Help each other work through them.  People keep building up armies against each other.  Try resolving your issues in a peaceful manner, before the need to build an army even arises.  Even in marriage, foundations must be maintained.  There is no such thing as "the indestructible foundation,"  but a foundation that is maintained, with proper communication, will last for as long as you make it last.


As always, thanks for reading.  Feel free to leave comments if my advice helped you at all.  Also, if you feel that this advice is "on-point," share the knowledge with someone you feel could benefit from this.  With approximately 50% of all marriages ending in divorce, I feel that this is a message that needs to be to be read. :)

Dangerous World

Hello all.  I know it has been a while since I published one of these, but with my busy life, I haven't been around a lot lately.  However, I felt a little inspired to post one of these, so here we go.

I have seen an influx of posts from people on Facebook posting articles and sharing news stories of people disappearing and then being found killed or raped.  And this has been happening on a more frequent basis.  And then I see pictures of people on Facebook and all over the Internet of people scantily dressed and barely dressed and it makes me wonder.

Do people actually see the connection?

Yes, when suspects are found, there are a few of the cases where the suspect is revealed to be a jilted ex-lover.  But a lot of the times, the killer happens to be some pedophile or pervert that happened to have stalked them or communicated (and feigned) interest in these people.

This is a newer age than it was when I was younger.  People didn't share pictures as easily as they can now.  People didn't have the kind of open exposure to the world as they do now.  And it is really a scary thing when you think about it.

For instance, when a person posts a scantily dressed picture of themselves on Facebook, and they leave the audience set as "Public," they expose themselves to the world.  Friends will see the pictures, but so will friends of friends and so on and so forth, until you have worldwide exposure.  And you know what they say, "Once it is on the Internet, it stays on the Internet."  That has never been more true than now.

The thing is, this is how people find you.  Pictures CAN be hacked, especially if taken from a mobile device with GPS.  The image gets encoded with metadata that can be read through a hex editor (or something like Notepad even).  If you ever take an image file and open it in Notepad, it will render a lot of text.  Someone could get GPS coordinates out of it and actually find exactly where the picture was taken.  Basically, posting scandalous pictures on Facebook provides an open invitation to all perverts and would-be rapists saying, "I am a fresh piece of meat, come and get me.  ;)"

What really concerns me is the fact, that the audience of people on Facebook also seems to get younger and younger.  It used to be in the beginning that you had to be a college student to even get a Facebook account.  Originally, you had to provide a college email address to even get entrance onto the site.  Nowadays, you can have you own account at the young age of 13.  At 13 years of age, a lot of people do not know the dangerous that lurk out there in the world of the Internet.  A lot of people do not understand the dangers that lurk on a computer nearby.

And even though 13 is the youngest age you have to be to start your own account legally, I HAVE seen younger people lying about their age to get a Facebook account.  And I've seen people who actually started Facebook accounts for kids who were 6 years old.  These kids probably do not even know how many pedophiles exist in their own neighborhoods.

So, I send this out as a warning to parents of young children, or to even young adults.  Be sure to practice a certain degree of safety when posting pictures on-line.  If you post pictures that are provocative or scandalous, be sure you know everyone who will be seeing your pictures.  Be sure you understand your audience.  Be sure that if posting from a mobile device (or any other computer device that can get your location), to disable the GPS or tracker.  To kids who are on social media, be sure you fully understand the dangers that lurk on the Internet before you post.  To parents of kids who are in the world of social media, be sure you know what your kids are posting and who is following or reading those posts.

Remember, do not make yourself a target...  someone will eventually shoot for it.  Be sure you know who it is that is doing the shooting. :)