Monday, June 6, 2016

Social media and catching you at your worst

I love social media. In fact, I've defended it several times against attacks from people who don't understand it. Generally these are people who post about how bad Facebook is from their Facebook page, or post about their kid having too much screen time from their own iPads. I know I've said that phrase or something like that many times and I apologize, but it's still one hundred percent true. 

I was reading a post in a baseball group where a mom posted about another women making a rude comment towards her apparently special needs son. The mom was understandably upset and she took a picture of the women who was apparently acting like a mega bitch. 

But we don't know the entire story. For all we know maybe the woman who said something regrettable was having a terrible day. Maybe she had gotten into an argument with her own kid, husband, boyfriend. She might have been late to the baseball game, stuck in traffic and the kid behind her might have been acting obnoxious. Look, if you've never been frustrated by a kids behavior-in particular a total strangers kid-you are either lying or you don't get out much. 

Even though it sounds like I am, I'm really not justifying being a nasty person to anyone, especially a child with special needs. If I captured your behavior twenty four hours a day and seven days a week, put it on camera and had emotions and personal feelings involved, I could make you out to be a monster too. Social media is a truly wonderful thing and I absolutely love it, but the dark side is that it can capture you at your worst and make you out to be a psychopath. 

Of course the best way to avoid being portrayed as a bad person is not to act like one. Remember that agenda of rage former CFO who berated the poor girl who worked in the drive in at Chick-Fil-A? He was a condescending arrogant bully, and his behavior cost him dearly. 

It can happen to anyone, really. 

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