Over the years, my opinions of my Facebook page, and what I allow to stay on my Facebook page have changed dramatically. Even who I allow to be my Facebook friends have changed dramatically. I thought I would share some of my current ways and views of dealing with Facebook that helps me keep a good and balanced mental health and outlook.
In years past, I had a hard time moderating my Facebook page. If someone commented on one of my posts and said something that was hurtful or harmful to myself or others, that was controversial or would possibly stir up drama, I let the post stand. I would try to jump in and say something to mitigate the effects, but this almost always resulted in things spiraling out of control and getting heated and mean very quickly. I am a peace maker, and though I support people expressing and holding a variety of ideas and opinions, I don't like contention and disrespect. This took a great toll on my mental healthy, this internal debate of allowing freedom of expression on a thread on my Facebook wall. I like hearing a variety of perspectives, and being open to new thoughts, I don't like peoples thoughts being silenced just because they are different from mine or another persons. How do we grow if we are not willing to hear another point of view? However, too often if I allowed people to post controversial and upsetting things it became a shouting match where no one heard anyone else, and I walked away feeling yucky.
Another area of potential problem with Facebook was who I chose to have as friends. Sometimes we interact with people quite well in real life, but online relationships and friendships can be very damaging to our real life relationships, especially if there is some hot button issue people disagree on fiercely. Some people I was friends with on Facebook because we had a real life connection, but I found that that Facebook friendship, rather than enhancing my relationship was destroying it. There are other people, I have met on Facebook through common interest groups, In real life we may struggle a bit to be face to face friends, perhaps our communication breaks down vocally vs in writing. I am an introvert and I am much better at written communication than vocal communication, and some people are the same. So there is a balance. But a very hard lesson for me to learn is that Facebook friends don't always need to be real life friends, and real life friends don't always need to be Facebook friends, and it is OK to set boundaries.
I became the moderator of my Facebook page following the recent SCOTUS decision. It took something incredibly divisive, and personal for me to step back, and see the importance of being not me the friend, coworker, family member, church member or anything else personal in the running of my Facebook space. When I made allowances for people to troll posts, and say hurtful things to one side or the other because they had this or that personal meaning in my life, It hurt me, and it hurt others personally. So I decided that Facebook is not real life. Facebook is Facebook, it is an on line forum, my page is my online forum. It is my duty to control the mood, tempo, and tone of my page. It is my duty to decided what is OK to post there and what is not. It is my duty to decided who is appropriate to participate in that space and who is not. It is my duty on my news feed to decided which friends it is a good idea for me to follow, and which ones I need to unfollow, hide, or minimize their appearance on my feed. Which friends I need to see daily, and which ones its best if I just check in on manually from time to time. There were also a few friends, real life friends, that I had to decide for the good of me, our friendship in real life, and my broader online community I was bringing to my page, that it was best if we had no Facebook involvement. This was not a reflection on our real life friendship, but was in fact to save our real life friendship. Some people, for the good of my sanity, and our real life friendships needed to be unfriended or sometimes even blocked. This was a very difficult and painful decision to make, but it was the right one, and when I felt it necessary I communicated and explained this directly to the person in question.
Another result of this Facebook moderating view is that I am now much more selective in who I choose to add as a friend on Facebook. If you send me a friend request, and we are friends in real life, and I don't add you, just know that its not because I don't want to be your real life friend, but I have judged it best for our friendship if we just don't go there with Facebook. I also have become more careful in what I share as a public post, vs a friends only post vs only to a select group of my most trusted close and personal friends. This is important because some things in my life, such as this blog, or my voices of hope video, essays I have written for Affirmation, etc, have perpetuated me and my personal life to a small circle public figure status. This means, sometimes my personal life becomes everyone's business. Although I love sharing some things with everyone, for everyone's mutual benefit and for my benefit of being open, it is important to have boundaries, and some things are just not everyone's business, not matter how public your life becomes. using the options afforded by Facebook, I have empowered myself to be able to determine what information I want to be public, what I want to be just between friends, and what I want to hold to a more private level. Alternating those positions is a very helpful thing to do.
There is no such thing as freedom of speech for anyone except myself on my Facebook page. I am the moderator. I have limits as well- set by Facebook. But it is my duty to myself, my mental health, and to my relationships online and IRL to determine what can and can not stay there. Sometimes this requires me to lovingly delete a comment on a thread before things spiral out of control, or before damage is done to myself emotionally, or to my other friends. Sometimes this means I need to unfollow, or hide certain things from my news feed, so we can still be friends, but maybe less involved friends. Sometimes this requires I limit who sees what I write, this is also OK to do. I think its important that we all feel empowered to manage and moderate our Facebook page. Finding a space for hearing others opinions and ideas is important to do in life. Its important to not get a one sided view of the world, however, is Facebook the appropriate place to get that view? Sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn't. We need to use our best judgement to determine when is a safe and appropriate time on Facebook to do that, and when that can be potentially harmful. And then, we need to manage our own pages, not each others accordingly. That is the determination I have come to in the past months. I cant, don't , and shouldn't control what you do on your Facebook page, and you shouldn't control mine. But I can and should empower myself to take control of my own page, my own news feed, my own friend lists, my own threads and make sure that the things posted are in accordance with my own personal values, and moral code. I am the one who moderates my own facebook page, I determine the environment that it will be. If I like debate, then I can have that, If I don't I have the power to stop it.
The TL;DR of this is basically, you have the power to make your Facebook a safe space for you. You have the power to make it a safe space for your friends, you have the power to determine what will or wont be on your Facebook, and it is OK to set the boundaries necessary to do so in the way you deem to be most effective. You have the power to create a healthy Facebook experience for yourself. I think if we did more of this, we would need breaks from Facebook a lot less often. Though I think occasionally those are still a good thing to do for everyone.
In years past, I had a hard time moderating my Facebook page. If someone commented on one of my posts and said something that was hurtful or harmful to myself or others, that was controversial or would possibly stir up drama, I let the post stand. I would try to jump in and say something to mitigate the effects, but this almost always resulted in things spiraling out of control and getting heated and mean very quickly. I am a peace maker, and though I support people expressing and holding a variety of ideas and opinions, I don't like contention and disrespect. This took a great toll on my mental healthy, this internal debate of allowing freedom of expression on a thread on my Facebook wall. I like hearing a variety of perspectives, and being open to new thoughts, I don't like peoples thoughts being silenced just because they are different from mine or another persons. How do we grow if we are not willing to hear another point of view? However, too often if I allowed people to post controversial and upsetting things it became a shouting match where no one heard anyone else, and I walked away feeling yucky.
Another area of potential problem with Facebook was who I chose to have as friends. Sometimes we interact with people quite well in real life, but online relationships and friendships can be very damaging to our real life relationships, especially if there is some hot button issue people disagree on fiercely. Some people I was friends with on Facebook because we had a real life connection, but I found that that Facebook friendship, rather than enhancing my relationship was destroying it. There are other people, I have met on Facebook through common interest groups, In real life we may struggle a bit to be face to face friends, perhaps our communication breaks down vocally vs in writing. I am an introvert and I am much better at written communication than vocal communication, and some people are the same. So there is a balance. But a very hard lesson for me to learn is that Facebook friends don't always need to be real life friends, and real life friends don't always need to be Facebook friends, and it is OK to set boundaries.
I became the moderator of my Facebook page following the recent SCOTUS decision. It took something incredibly divisive, and personal for me to step back, and see the importance of being not me the friend, coworker, family member, church member or anything else personal in the running of my Facebook space. When I made allowances for people to troll posts, and say hurtful things to one side or the other because they had this or that personal meaning in my life, It hurt me, and it hurt others personally. So I decided that Facebook is not real life. Facebook is Facebook, it is an on line forum, my page is my online forum. It is my duty to control the mood, tempo, and tone of my page. It is my duty to decided what is OK to post there and what is not. It is my duty to decided who is appropriate to participate in that space and who is not. It is my duty on my news feed to decided which friends it is a good idea for me to follow, and which ones I need to unfollow, hide, or minimize their appearance on my feed. Which friends I need to see daily, and which ones its best if I just check in on manually from time to time. There were also a few friends, real life friends, that I had to decide for the good of me, our friendship in real life, and my broader online community I was bringing to my page, that it was best if we had no Facebook involvement. This was not a reflection on our real life friendship, but was in fact to save our real life friendship. Some people, for the good of my sanity, and our real life friendships needed to be unfriended or sometimes even blocked. This was a very difficult and painful decision to make, but it was the right one, and when I felt it necessary I communicated and explained this directly to the person in question.
Another result of this Facebook moderating view is that I am now much more selective in who I choose to add as a friend on Facebook. If you send me a friend request, and we are friends in real life, and I don't add you, just know that its not because I don't want to be your real life friend, but I have judged it best for our friendship if we just don't go there with Facebook. I also have become more careful in what I share as a public post, vs a friends only post vs only to a select group of my most trusted close and personal friends. This is important because some things in my life, such as this blog, or my voices of hope video, essays I have written for Affirmation, etc, have perpetuated me and my personal life to a small circle public figure status. This means, sometimes my personal life becomes everyone's business. Although I love sharing some things with everyone, for everyone's mutual benefit and for my benefit of being open, it is important to have boundaries, and some things are just not everyone's business, not matter how public your life becomes. using the options afforded by Facebook, I have empowered myself to be able to determine what information I want to be public, what I want to be just between friends, and what I want to hold to a more private level. Alternating those positions is a very helpful thing to do.
There is no such thing as freedom of speech for anyone except myself on my Facebook page. I am the moderator. I have limits as well- set by Facebook. But it is my duty to myself, my mental health, and to my relationships online and IRL to determine what can and can not stay there. Sometimes this requires me to lovingly delete a comment on a thread before things spiral out of control, or before damage is done to myself emotionally, or to my other friends. Sometimes this means I need to unfollow, or hide certain things from my news feed, so we can still be friends, but maybe less involved friends. Sometimes this requires I limit who sees what I write, this is also OK to do. I think its important that we all feel empowered to manage and moderate our Facebook page. Finding a space for hearing others opinions and ideas is important to do in life. Its important to not get a one sided view of the world, however, is Facebook the appropriate place to get that view? Sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn't. We need to use our best judgement to determine when is a safe and appropriate time on Facebook to do that, and when that can be potentially harmful. And then, we need to manage our own pages, not each others accordingly. That is the determination I have come to in the past months. I cant, don't , and shouldn't control what you do on your Facebook page, and you shouldn't control mine. But I can and should empower myself to take control of my own page, my own news feed, my own friend lists, my own threads and make sure that the things posted are in accordance with my own personal values, and moral code. I am the one who moderates my own facebook page, I determine the environment that it will be. If I like debate, then I can have that, If I don't I have the power to stop it.
The TL;DR of this is basically, you have the power to make your Facebook a safe space for you. You have the power to make it a safe space for your friends, you have the power to determine what will or wont be on your Facebook, and it is OK to set the boundaries necessary to do so in the way you deem to be most effective. You have the power to create a healthy Facebook experience for yourself. I think if we did more of this, we would need breaks from Facebook a lot less often. Though I think occasionally those are still a good thing to do for everyone.
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