The Unsociable Network

I love Facebook.  It has allowed me to do what I was never able to accomplish in the pre-FB era:  stay in touch with folks who are no longer part of my day-to-day life (and even some who still are).  I can stay in touch with some of the thousands of students I've had the pleasure of teaching over the course of my 44-year career.  I'm able to see what former colleagues are up to, even if they live in different parts of the country.  I get to see pictures of family, including cousins who live nearby but don't get to visit often, and a whole bunch who live in Europe and pretty much never get to visit.  I can share information, opinions, and pictures with fellow dog enthusiasts here and abroad; I know who did well in yesterday's dog shows, who had a litter this week, and what people think of my latest puppy.  I can stay in touch with the people with whom I went to High School, even if I haven't seen them since graduation.

Facebook is also a wonderful tool for anyone who wants to get a message out to a whole bunch of people really fast.  Want to maximize entries for a dog show?  Put it out there on Facebook for all your fellow breeders and exhibitors to see.  Want to help your favorite charity with their fundraising efforts?  Just post for all your friends to see how important that organization is to your life.  Want to send birthday wishes to people you don't see often?  Just click on the nice little reminders Facebook provides every week.

Facebook is also very convenient for getting a political message out to a whole bunch of people during our overly-long election cycle.  Just click "Share" on a page you agree with, and all of your friends get to see what they have to say.  And if just a small percentage of your friends share the same page, and a small percentage of their friends do the same, ... and so on, and so on.

This one seems to have already gone over to the Dark Side

But politics can bring out the dark side in some people, and nowhere is that more evident to me than on good ole Facebook.  I've noticed three kinds of political dark-siders on this social medium:

• The Negativist
• The Linkmaster
• The Disrespectre

Let's examine them one at a time.

The Negativist

Please don't think I believe that there's anything wrong with sharing political views on social media.  A good campaign will use this tool to maximum effectiveness; I've already "liked" several pages that keep me informed from the perspective with which I most closely identify.  It's also most likely the conduit by which you found your way to this blog.  But the Negativist is the Facebooker who bombards you, day after day, with a ton of Status updates, not with a positive message about what he/she believes in, but instead with a negative message about how much he/she hates the opposition.  Think I'm exaggerating?  Just cruise around FB for a while, and lurk on a few pages.  I found one person's timeline with over 50 political posts in the month of July alone, and every single one of them was anti-Obama - not once did I see any mention of Mitt Romney.  Personally, I'd rather hear what you believe in, not what or whom you hate.

The Linkmaster

Once in a while, even I will click "Share" on a political page I think might be interesting and informative for my friends to see, providing I'm reasonably certain the information on that page is correct.  But the Linkmaster takes it to the extreme by sharing every page that echoes his/her political opinion, without bothering to check whether or not the information found there is true.  Within the last few days, I've seen links to anti-Obama pages that hit on every urban myth from doubting he ever attended Columbia University, to the "fact" that he was really born in Kenya (Still?  Really?).  Possibly the worst one I've seen this week was on Breitbart.com (Andrew may be gone, but his legacy lives on), digitally shouting that "the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee were suing Ohio’s Attorney General and Secretary of State to prevent military voters from being granted three extra days of early voting."  One has only to read the first paragraph of the actual lawsuit (which I found in thirty seconds of Googling) to find the following:  "Plaintiffs bring this lawsuit to restore in-person early voting for all Ohioans during the three days prior to Election Day – a right exercised by an estimated 93,000 Ohioans in the last presidential election."  In case you're still in the dark on this one, the Republican Ohio legislature passed a bill that reduces the number of early voting days that were previously available to voters, but still allows active military personnel to vote on the three days eliminated for everyone else.  The Obama lawsuit seeks to overturn the law and thereby restore the full number of early voting days for all voters.  Not exactly what I read on Breitbart.com.

The Disrespectre
This is the person who offends me the most.  I grew up with the belief that one should always show respect for the office of the Presidency - or for any position of authority - even if one doesn't like the person who holds that office.  I believed (still do, for that matter) that George W. Bush was the worst President of my lifetime, but I don't think I ever called him anything worse than "W."  Yet the Disrespectres of Facebook continue to call the current President names like degenerate, evil, ass-clown, and traitor.  Yes, I found those actual words and others like them on actual pages I've stumbled onto on Facebook. I've never once resented the fact that there are people who disagree with me - I'm good friends with several people whose political orientation is 180º removed from mine - but I just can't understand a lack of respect for the office.  Maybe disrespect is the last refuge of those who don't have the facts on their side.

So go ahead, put your feelings out there on whatever social medium you prefer.  That's what the First Amendment reference to freedom of speech is all about.  But be careful not to go over to the Dark Side.  That just makes sense to me - how about you?

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