Image courtesy of bucksays.com

It has been a while since I have blogged and I offer my sincere apologies.  I must say, I am grateful to have so many readers via friends, family, Twitter, and Facebook that have sent so many messages inquiring when my next my blog was to be released.  I know I promised a short story this time around and don’t worry, it is coming very shortly after this blog.  I am just a little more picky and self conscience about my fictional stories than I am about my personal opinions and inspirational commentary.

Today, I wanted to talk about a trend that I have been witnessing on social media venues.  There are so many people I follow on Twitter and so many pages I subscribe to on Facebook.  I love to read other people’s opinions and I love the diversity that is so rampant in these applications.  However, with freedom of speech also apparently comes freedom to be ignorant!  There are so many tasteless individuals who feel it necessary to attack everyone and respond with nasty, unnecessary comments.  I see so many individuals defending their posts against these idiots who peruse the internet for the sole purpose of bullying, defaming and causing anguish.

Let’s take the debate topic from last night.  Now, nothing stirs up more heated discussions than politics.  For some reason in this area, we cannot simply agree to disagree.  We all have heard the death threats that have ensued in the past from these exchanges. Hell, some of the Facebook comments I saw made me cringe.  Just because we have social media with the ability for instant responses, where everyone and anyone can post and comment on just about anything, does not mean that we are free to take it over the top with our criticism and different viewpoints.

I don’t respond to commentary for the simple fact that my temper does not allow me to even go there.  I do not have the ability to be impartial and not take extreme offense to someone attacking my opinions or saying something just downright nasty to where it makes you want to slap some sense into them.  A lot of people blame social media for this but I don’t think we can even blame that.  I believe people have always been this way, we just get saturated in it everyday because everyone can hide behind their computers and say whatever idiotic thought comes to mind.

I know it is wishful thinking, but it would be nice to have civilized discussions via the internet.  People should ask themselves would they really be that ignorant in person?  Keep in mind, I am talking about the extreme posters, not the regular, healthy disagreements that occur everyday.  You see, I come from a heavily opinionated, dominating family, so I know all to well what it feels like to have opinions forced on you.  I see nothing wrong with being opinionated but I do believe it is wrong to discount and disrespect others opinions.

I encourage those of you with Facebook pages and regular Twitter commentary to simply moderate those who reply.  Stop giving those attention seekers what they crave.  You see, they really don’t have opinions or offer any value to what you are trying to say, so simply delete and ignore.  I see too many pages with paragraphs of responses to these individuals and I ask myself why?  For example, there is a page I follow that is solely dedicated to curvy women.  I followed the page because I loved that it was inspiring women to embrace their bodies and have confidence in who they are.  But then came the naysayers and I started to see more posts in response to their negative comments than I did the inspirational ones.  The best way to shut this nonsense down is to stop giving them a platform.

Well, that is my two cents on that subject.  Let me focus on providing you with a great short story now! Just when I was finishing up this blog, a good friend posted on Facebook that we need to remember who is the author and perfecter of our faith and ultimately who we serve: HE is in control. Well said!  Remember who you serve and ignore the naysayers, they are everywhere.  Do you and be proud!

~Mara Prose