This Was Probably an Over-reaction

I admire what you did. You will never change those people's minds anyway, so instead of getting yourself all riled up, you took yourself out of the "conversation." Good on you.

I am in a bit of a similar situation. Most of my in-laws are in PA and some went to Penn State. I, too, am seeing comments on Facebook that I wholeheartedly disagree with. I can't believe "school spirit" really goes that deep, but ... I, too, am doing my best to not entertain a conversation about it any way, shape or form.

I think you made a very adult decision.

I feel for you.  I was just talking to one of my employees about the Penn state stuff and it got irrational really quickly.  I can't even imagine the talk going on in Lion country...

On one hand, I don't want to say that if I am not in agreement with a person on everything, I can't talk to them. That's not my point. And I'm not saying it is your mom's either.

But the advent of social media has made it so that now, I have a good number of friends that I now know every thought that pops into their head. I have their public record of expressing opinions on everything. Perhaps before, ignorance was bliss. But there is some civility in the social contract that we tend to lose in the world of facebook. Whereas I could once decide the terms in which I engage in conversation with a person, and the topics of said conversations, now unless I cut a person's feed entirely, I get to read all about their thoughts on everything. I have an uncle that suddenly got political, and I almost didn't want to stay at their place for Eagleman after reading too much of it, as he was aggressively posting craziness on my wall. On a personal level he is a great family member who is supportive and generous. But I made the mistake of wearing my RUSH (the band )jersey near him, and he's a big Rush the AM guy fan, and we ended a conversation with me asking if he thought my wife was a <edited by site> for getting birth control at planned parenthood in college in the 90s. (I guess I can't blame facebook for that.)

I know this sounds like a ridiculous critique from a guy with a blog, and over 1000 posts here. But those areas are targeted, and specific. I actually edit my blog, it's not a stream-of-consciousness rant, like it so easily could be for me. Facebook is continual conversation about everything. As a heavy user, it is probably good for me to take a hiatus every once in a while as a matter of course. This recent blow up has made it easier to pick that time.  

^^Like

Exactly!!!  

This was somewhat of an issue more than a decade before the internet was opened up to the public. Relatively few people had computers, and even fewer had acoustic coupler modems and dialed into the old BBSs. It was an online community with the same issues we have today. I guess we'll never learn.

I understand.  I recently took a friend off the live fee because he was posting like 20-30 lets slam Mitt Romney crap things a day. Seriously you have THAT MUCH TIME ON YOUR HANDS to post 20-30 things a DAY slamming a politcal candidate?  Everyone is entitled to their opinion but I don't need it pushed down my throat all day everyday.

Sorry you are in the middle of such a mess It must a painful time in Happy valley.   I feel bad for the athletes but the entire situation is such a huge mess there just is no good outcome 

I will use FB, but understand your point.  I have people wanting to change the world with gun laws, Obama bashing, Romney bashing.  But, when people go to far for me, I just use the controls to limit what the posts I receive, or I block entirely. 

I am really sick of cat pictures, but haven't found the CATPICTUREONLYBLOCKING TOOL.  :-)

I don't think it's an overreaction - an adult assesses (is that too many ess's?) a situation and determines how it's best to behave.  You've simply done that.

Don't sweat it!

twomarks

What's funny is to think that turning off FB is considered a "possible" over reaction.

I have a FB account. I never use it, go there about twice a year. I only have it to know where to find a couple people if I need to. After I got it and it soon filled up with a bunch of people I have not talked to since H.S., that was it. I don't care.

I do go to forums because I can choose what content I want to look at, I can choose which threads I want to read. But getting roped into every idiotic friend of other friends I don't care about and replicating silly stuff over and over...

Dude... you can just not FB. You could actually never go back.. it would not make one bit of difference in your life. Every time I visit FB, I realize why I have not been there in 6 months. One of those is my B-day to tell everyone thanks.

Here is a novel idea... if one is interested in how a friend is doing, you could use a phone and call them, then you get to hang up and go about your day. It's neat. Just a thought.

The thing I scroll through when I poop at work :-P

I just play solitaire.