I often wonder what goes through some people’s minds when they post on social media.
Granted, my social media accounts are limited to Facebook and Twitter, and an Instagram account that I signed up for three years ago and never used. (I think it’s still active; I get email messages from Instagram all the time providing updates on the eight people who follow me on Instagram).
There’s also a Linkedin page that I signed up for, and allows people to see how long I’ve been with the Mercury and Lifestyles, and how I spent two years writing sports for Weyburn This Week.
(Yes, someone thought it was a brilliant idea to pay me to watch more hockey. Some would call that enabling).
One of my duties with the Mercury and Lifestyles is to monitor the Mercury’s Facebook page. For the most part, it involves posting articles from our very active website, www.estevanmercury.ca, on to Facebook, where the Mercury has nearly 5,400 followers.
Then I check from time to time to make sure that nothing slanderous is said.
It’s rare that something is posted that we have to delete, but some people don’t realize that they can’t post on our Facebook page the things that they would post on their own Facebook page.
Unfortunately, it’s also rare to see people post intelligent, well-reasoned and lucid remarks on social media.
For example, after somebody does something stupid, or a crime is committed, we’ll often see a remark to the effect of “smarten up, Estevan.” Yep, like that one doofus or that one criminal is the epitome of an entire community of 12,000 people.
The people who make these statements should heed their own advice.
And you’ll get statements that are inaccurate. Not slanderous, but wrong. If they would take the time to do a quick bit of research (you know, one to two minutes), you’d realize that what you said is wrong, and it shouldn’t have been shared.
(I know you have the time to research it. You had the time to type the post, and then in many cases, get into an argument over it).
Comments about Estevan city council and the City of Estevan and other government bodies are often inaccurate. Some people just can’t let go of their pre-conceived notions of council and governments.
If you would have read the article about city council approving property taxes and utility rates for this year, you would have known that they weren’t going up. You therefore wouldn’t have complained about a property tax increase on social media.
After this week’s Estevan Fair, someone made the comment about how it was the Estevan Exhibition Association’s decision to drop the fair from a three-day event to two. Yet a quick search would tell them that it was the midway provider who made the decision to go to two days.
The exhibition association had to go with two, because there isn’t an abundance of good midway providers in Western Canada in 2019.
In a perfect world, the fair and the rodeo would be on the same weekend during the summer, it would be one of the biggest parties of the year and we’d all have a great time. But it’s not a perfect world. And when you’re dealing with two very large touring groups, you can’t always get them together on the same weekend.
There’s one other social media group that drives me nuts: the Twitter taggers. These are the ones who will tag you in their tweets to get your attention. What they don’t realize is not everybody spends as much time on Twitter as they do.
Here’s a clue: you want to reach somebody? Call them. Email them. It’s more frequently monitored than Twitter. A quick Google search will give you our phone number and email address.
(I have to laugh to those who tweet celebrities or political leaders, like Justin Trudeau and Donald Trump. I think Canada’s prime minister and the U.S. president have better things to do than to respond to a tweet from someone in an apartment complex in Regina).
Do people think they look smart with their posts on social media? Do they think they’re debating in a way that says they should be taken seriously? Or are they merely looking to goad someone into a debate, and hope that this person says or does something foolish?
I made a decision a while ago not to get dragged into debates on social media with people who don’t know what they’re talking about, or who can’t acknowledge when they’ve made a mistake.
Unfortunately, if you’re looking for scintillating debate, social media is not the place to do it. Then again, it seems like there are fewer possibilities for intellectually stimulating discussions.
There are a lot of intelligent, well-reasoned people in this community, and on Facebook and other social media platforms. Yet social media brings out the worst in them.
A lot of good comes out of social media. It can be a great tool for helping others.
But some people need to expect better of themselves.
