Never before have we supposedly
known more about our neighbour – whether our neighbour’s literally in our
street or on the other side of the planet.
Social media has
made it possible to publicise even the drabbest details about our lives, but
people are apt at promoting a better life than they actually enjoy. (Though
there are some who go the opposite way and play the ‘woe is me’ game for their
world to see.)
It’s so easy
nowadays to check out a friend’s page, even though we would hardly say hello to
some of these friends if we passed them in the shopping centre – we just don’t
know some of them that well.
Friendship has never
been cheaper than in this social media age.
But, then again,
this social media friendship phenomenon has facilitated many good things.
Given that we
conduct our Facebook time on our own the majority of the time, here are five negative
factors we should all be aware of:
1.
‘Stalking’ causes
envy or pride or both. The practice of secretly looking at other people’s pages
will generate a false impression of what their lives are really about. We might
expect to feel worse or feel too much better as a result, and this is all
seated in the mode of comparison.
2.
‘Stalking’ betrays
our soul and compromises our relationship with God. Secrets kept for
secret’s sake because of guilt or shame are damaging. Such secrets kept will
degrade our confidence, not build it, because our consciences know very well
when we lack integrity.
3.
People often only
place their best stuff on Facebook. It’s a real pity that we’ve generally all become a little more
narcissistic since the social media age began. We likely only post what will
make us look good, different or special. As we stalk people on social media we
begin to not be able to differentiate between a healthy interest and our envy
and/or pride.
4. We
cannot ‘unknow’ what we learn. This is such an important fact. We ought to be very careful
what we learn. Some things we learn we learn to regret learning. They make our
lives harder, not easier.
5. We
may actually give our game away. If we are careless in our stalking we can leave some sign that we
did what we did. That may well be justice.
***
For all social media’s benefits it can also be a temptation into
an unhealthy and inappropriate interest in others.
© 2015 S. J. Wickham.
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