I am not on Facebook and don't ever plan to be. The 12 year old is standing behind me yelling,"I want to go on Facebook!!"- Not a chance buddy-let me tell you why.
The anonymity it offers(true people know you,but you are in cyberspace, not exactly sitting in a cafe sharing thoughts),lets people behave in ways they wouldn't otherwise dare.Remember the bigamist who was outed on Facebook when he became the common thread between his two wives who friended each other and discovered they had a LOT in common?!
My sister is on Facebook and mentioned something that happened on the page dedicated to our school-Fatima Matriculation(Gosh!!we don't have a mascot-go uh uh uh I give up ?!).
People share nostalgia on the page obviously and this lady who passed out in 2002 mentioned mass bunking class one day.One past pupil,who passed out in, get this,1971-when like Black Adder mentions about the Prime Minister Disraeli not yet being a gleam in the milkman's eye-my sister was not even born and heck,this 2002 graduate's mom was probably not even in God's crosshairs,casually asked if they all hid in the bathroom which is incredibly difficult to do-at the cost of sounding disloyal- at the filthiest bathrooms ever-in a school for girls ages 4-17,if you catch my drift. The young woman's response-"If you don't belong to my batch,shut up!" -EXCUSE ME?
When you are on a public forum you open yourself up to public scrutiny and should be willing to go the whole hog and if you are a decent person-maintain some kind of decorum-in this case all the back and forth is between people who share a commonality-having been educated in the same school.And how you comport is a reflection of how you were taught in school too.
My sister mentioned this to me and like they say back home, fight-a-cock-that I am, I convinced her to register her protest on the grounds that this woman was besmirching the school's name with her subpar behavior and that people unfamiliar with the school might assume it was not a good place to send their kids in the future.
She did and the response was interesting-one person in defense of the mouthy lady(who,however did apologize for the rudeness,but considered my sister's comment judgmental-the new lady,not the mouthy one) and another defending my sister's right to ask her to pipe down.Right there it struck me, was the entire spectrum of humanity-flippant,thoughtless,tolerant,defensive,respectful....
If you can take the good with the rude,crass,cowardly hiding behind the facelessness of Facebook-go for it!You cannot control other people's behaviour and while what I write seems to imply you need a thick skin to make it on Facebook,expecting some degree of decency,especially from people who are not exactly total strangers I think is fair enough.
Me?Nope.Not a chance of getting on Facebook.And as for the 12 year old-considering he can't take constructive criticism from his teacher(yours truly!), I don't think he is ready for Facebook yet.
Oh,by the way,my husband managed to catch up on all the blog posts and said they were good,but I needed to learn to add a space after commas and periods.I did offer to let him edit the work for me,but no, I need to do it myself it seems-so please use your reading glasses because I am too lazy to do that kind of thing!!
When I started typing this post, he goes,"Is it about me?"-I had to say no,but soon, very soon.....
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