The Facebook Divide

I was reluctant to sign up for Facebook when it first came out so many years ago.

I only had a MySpace account to play Mafia Wars with a friend and the thought of Facebook did not sound very appealing to me.

Yet, I gave into peer pressure and opened an account.

At first, it was overwhelming for me.

And annoyingly boring.

I didn’t care what people were eating for dinner or how long they ran that morning.

I’d go from starting at it endlessly for hours to not wanting to sign in for weeks at a time.

Then, I started connecting with friends I hadn’t heard from since high school.

I could finally appreciate what the fuss was about.

I actually enjoyed hearing from friends, catching up on what they had been doing the last twenty or so years, and seeing their family photos they’d share.

It was a simpler, more gentle time on social media.

Fast forward a few years and somehow, the platform evolved from sharing asinine and banal posts to being a virtual soapbox where people decided to share their opinions and views on everything -- with no regard of how it is received by others.

“My wall, my page -- if you don’t like it, you know where the unfriend button is!” was often the comment either in response to someone who disagreed or as a post script, letting people know there was no room for discussion.

As the years passed, the discord grew.

People became more and more open with their opinions, even if or perhaps especially if it seemed to stir the proverbial pot or cause a lot of online drama.

Rather than stopping to see if what they were sharing was true or added to the already current social conversation, they shared their opinion in order to garner likes or start a fight.

I saw plenty who did that.

People who wanted to post something controversial just to get people riled up.

Then, politics became the most talked about subject and not only did people grow bolder in their opinions, they seemed to think sharing their opinion made it a fact.

What was once a fun if not silly corner of the cyberuniverse was now a toxic place for people to feel vindicated in their hate.

I noticed that not all were sowing seeds of discord.

Some, mostly friends I grew up with, were raised under the tutelage of “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all,” and didn’t voice an opinion for every thought that came to mind.

If they did comment or respond to another friend’s post, there were no attacks but merely a question or an opposing view shared respectfully.

Not everyone can -- or will -- do that.

While I have often believed that our strength lies in our differences -- not everyone likes vanilla, that’s why Baskin-Robbins has 30 other flavors -- and that we need to have differing opinions and perspectives least we fall into an echo chamber, the one thing I cannot tolerate is an opinion that is only born in hate.

I’ve witnessed people sharing memes full of hate and lies, with no room for any discussion or difference of opinion.

Even though having a difference of opinion is fine, being nasty and hateful is not. Some people aren’t aware of how what they share is received.

While it is not our job to worry about how someone will interpret something, it is our job to think if what we are sharing is true and factual, and be aware of how it may come across. And, we need to understand, it may make people think differently of us when they see it.

Until this year, I normally didn’t unfriend people because of their constant spewing on Facebook.

This year, I did.

There was too much hate.

Too much toxicity.

And I realized regardless of where we stood politically, some of the things they posted were moral issues more than they were political.

Facebook has caused us to lose our critical thinking skills and accept things as truths, simply because it supports our cognitive bias.

We have attacked and been attacked by people we don’t even know, without trying to find a common ground or course towards a solution.

It has illuminated the divide between us.

I am not saying Facebook is the root of this social evil, but it has been the gasoline that fueled the flames.

I have found myself growing weary with social media, as I already feel the divide from so many friends and family.

I try to post uplifting or humourous things to break up the hate, the insanity, the vitroile.

But I don’t think any of it matters in the great social construct of things.

As much as I never thought I’d say this, but I miss the days of people posting their dinner menus.