The other day I did what I hate doing on social media: I experienced one of those knee-jerk, angry reactions to what someone posted and I kind of lashed out in the comments. That did nothing good for my state of mind.
I don’t use Facebook often and when I do I mostly lurk. But occasionally I share one of these blog posts on my Facebook page because I think there might be one or two people who might want to read what I wrote. When I do share a post, I end up spending more time on the site.
So I’ve decided to create a personal ten commandments in order to guide my social media behavior. Here they are:
- Thou shalt post only what thou is willing the entire world to read.
- Thou shalt resist the temptation to immediately and impulsively refute someone’s words when thou disagrees with what they say.
- Thou shalt hurl no personal insults.
- Thou shalt not brag about thou offspring even though thou deeply loves and is exceptionally proud of them.
- Thou shalt not be guilted or goaded into reposting or sharing someone’s post about others who are trying to raise money, awareness, or empathy.
- Thou shalt not participate in divisive political discussions.
- Thou shalt not use a snarky or dismissive tone.
- Thou shalt not complain.
- Thou shalt follow the Golden Rule.
- Thou shalt not use social media much if thou sticks to these rules, because with so many rules to follow, what’s left to post?
