Faith: What does your Facebook status say about you?
In today’s world of Tweets, Facebook statues, BBM updates and now Google+ it is hard to remember what life used to be like before we had so many outlets to share our emotions. I contend that these outlets are like therapy to those of us that just need to vent. It used to be a quick phone call to a friend or writing it down in a journal. Now, the world (yes the WHOLE WORLD) knows how we feel about everything; from our love lives to Chris Brown’s pants. The sense of community I feel while watching my favorite TV shows with my twitter friends is great however, there is also a dark side. The dark side is the negative unfiltered, emotional and impulsive stuff that come to our minds every moment of existing that we choose to share with the world.
I by no means am an “anti-social media” person I love it ALL! However, I am an anti-negativity person and what I realized (in my own life) is that negative thoughts shape reality. With the popularity of social media not only are our negative thoughts shaping our reality we are solidifying them in eternal cyberspace. I was probably the biggest offender of this for a very long time (and I still can be on occasion). It was something in me that wanted to let everyone know when I was pissed off, dealing with a liar, facing an untrustworthy friend (subliminal statuses), going through a breakup and the plethora of other negative human emotion that I experienced daily. Since showing is better then telling I thought I would share some negative content I have posted throughout the years:
"Guys who have tried to holla at most girls you know are the equivalent to a female jump off #nobueno"
"Such a flurry of stress today between office stuff, site happenings, and THE most annoying text messages..."
"Really disappointed with someone in my life, if they can complete simple task that I asked for over 3 weeks ago how can college even be an option...really saddened"
"Ran 4 miles...car got a flat ran to the grocery store to get fix a flat but didn't work attempted to drive to the nearest Gas station to fill it and my GPS led me to a parking lot, then had to drive down to the tire place with a flat try to find parking."
"I think it takes some fake s$%t to realize some real s$%t."
"Hell yeah! ...Haters... if you've got no one to hate on feel free to hate on me!"
"Went to the boys got some answers. I was defn out of my f%&king mind! Thats why they call me single girl swag "Hands up cups up bottles up" The city is calling... ;-)"
"Is tired of people who want to be your best friend one min and spit in your face the next.....Now wonder people are in the situations they are in!!"
"You've been trying to avoid the drama, but it keeps following you everywhere. Look closely at the people in your life to see where it's coming from."
This is a good collection of what went on in my social media world. I remember at one point I even deleted my accounts to stop the insanity. I was definitely using it to cope. Not only did these statuses perpetuate the negativity that was already going on in my life, but it put an impression out there that I didn’t want people to have. If I had written it down before I typed it out it probably wouldn’t have been published the eternal book of cyberspace.
The point of sharing this with you is that we all do things in life that show us in an unfavorable light. We learn from these things and it makes us better. For some of us we grow up and stop the craziness, for some it takes a littler longer and unfortunately there are those that never change. Before you think about status updating on the crazy day you have had, sending the bitter subliminal tweet or complaining about something you will probably forget about in a day THINK. Write it down. Call a good friend. In my case I text it to my sister, let her laugh and tell me how inappropriate I am, and then move on. Trust me, I am no angel I still have my moments, but they are fewer and far between. Hopefully, reading this will make you think twice before you press send.