To my friends on social media

KAMLOOPS — I have embraced social media as much as a non-technical person can. I don’t know all the ins and outs of hashtags and analytics and the finer points of how it all works. I have people who work with me who are constantly trying to teach me to do the job better. I’m not totally ignorant technically. But some of the things on Facebook and Twitter, and the other social things like Instagram and SnapChat drive me crazy. I don’t know what it means when something is “trending”. Is that good or bad? I don’t know why I would put something up that indicates my Feeling/Activity level. I like to communicate with my friends, I have a responsibility as a news person to put stories up on our station pages, and I do the best job I can of that. But there is so much to know, and I think you have to be one of those people who does it for several hours a day to really “get” it. Members of my team are constantly coming in to my office and showing me how to “improve” my tweets and posts. They are far more savvy than I, and thank goodness for that. That’s the only way I will eventually get it right. I don’t “poke” people, I don’t play Facebook games but I enjoy the ability to instantly get messages out to my friends and associates. Mostly the things you don’t understand, or you don’t want to do, you can just ignore. But some things really irk me. None more so than “friends” telling me they want to make sure I read all their message, and ask me not to “share” a post, but actually cut and paste it so I show I read it. That really ticks me off. In fact, I have unfriended some people who do it too often. I don’t have the time to cut and paste a message that in many cases means nothing to me and I can’t see what it means to them either. Is there some Facebook bonus you get for having your friends do that?  That’s probably the most unfriendly thing you could ask me to do. I like social media, but it’s becoming so intrusive and so silly that I wonder if the value is still there. Maybe the companies behind Facebook and Twitter  feel a need to come up with new things to keep their clients’ interest. But it’s getting to the point now that social media should be called unsocial media because it’s far too intrusive for my liking. I’m not ready to go back to writing letters yet, because it takes too long and costs too much, and I like the instant gratification. But I’m not as gratified as I used to be. And I think from some of the feedback I get that I’m not alone in that regard.