Raise your hand if you're seeing passionate status updates from friends, coworkers, family, and others on your Facebook stream?
Raise your hand if you've wanted to ignore that entire topic or if you get yourself into snarly debates with people over Obamacare or the general idea of a government shut down?
OK so the 3 of you who didn't raise your hands, you are free to stop reading.
For the rest of us, it can just be maddening! Either we're the ones so passionate to educate everyone about the details, we lose sight of the fact that there are many news outlets people can voluntarily read without us having to blast them with our thoughts or links. Or, we're so tired of politics and just want to get back to cute cat videos.
Let's break down some of our options, from less to more intense.
You could entirely ignore Facebook for the entire length of the shutdown.
You could build "lists" and only stay updated on the safe people on the lists where they don't talk politics.
If the person isn't really central to your life, and you know they're super political. "hide" them on Facebook and make a note in a week (optimistic me, eh!) to unhide them when the hoopla dies down. This will just remove the drama and your annoyance and they'll never know.
If you're finding the person isn't central to your life, and when you reflect on it, alllllllll they talk about is politics, they never engage you in your life, and they cause a sense of dread every time you see them, now may be the time to unfriend. They probably won't even notice!
If the person is more central to your life, but only talks politics, again you can probably get away with hiding them for now. If you are worried they occasionally share some super important update, and you have a shared friend on Facebook, you could always ask that friend "let me know if they say something important about their personal life."
If the person is close to your life, always nasty and attacking, and causes you dread, consider how important it is to be on Facebook with them at all. Weigh the pros and cons of defriending vs hiding and decide if your sanity is more important than your obligation to share cyberspace with them. Remember if they are nice "in real life", and you have occasion to see them and talk somewhat honestly, wait for them to even notice and bring it up. If they do, you could just share the honest truth: you love them as a person but their Facebook personality stresses the heck out of you. Or, you could do a 'restricted' list where all your status updates go to everyone but them. If they enjoy attacking you, however, they're likely to notice the missing posts and ask you.
And of course, we have all been victim to BEING defriended. It's usually better to leave it alone and not pry. There are many reasons people defriend and do you really need to ask, when you may not like the answer? One of the greatest lines I've heard from a client, referencing a noisy, opinionated in-law, is:
YOUR opinion of me is none of MY business.
Remember that next time you are in attackville. Others can think anything they want about you, shove words and thoughts in your mouth you don't have, but that really is none of your business. Carefully navigate ways to avoid the attacks and get on with life outside of cyberspace.
Do you have any cool tricks to navigate social media? I'd love to hear them below!
