Dear friends, please stop awkward self-propaganda on facebook!
Many use Facebook to share information with their friends or with a wider online community. I often wonder about the quality of the information shared on this social network and if some of this information isn’t way to private to be communicated online. Further, I fundamentally question the motivation behind such posts.
I first noticed this when a girl in my friends list posted online about her pregnancy while she was not yet ready or willing to tell her friends and family in person that she is expecting a baby. (I knew her mother had no idea.)
Other friends marked a life event on Facebook because they stopped smoking or lost 5 pounds. One girl even posted a picture of her scale showing her new body fat index. Quitting smoking or loosing weight is very important for your health but it’s not important to a semi-anonymous group of people on Facebook. It almost seems like people need the likes, shares and positive comments to keep going and these are very sad motivations when striving for a healthier lifestyle.
Speaking of the need for likes. There is a guy in my friends list that decided to make a big donation to cancer-patients. He posted many picture of the letters of the organization he was planning to make the donation to and he made 2 big post with pictures of himself and his girlfriend on his planned donation. (“Here I am one my vacation with bae just before the big donation day!!”). It really seemed as if he wanted everyone to know what a good and cool (exotic destination, beautiful girlfriend…) person he is.
Some weeks later I found out by chance that he never actually made a donation. Funny enough he didn’t find this important enough to post on facebook. He never actually helped someone, he only got to post empty comments. This made me very sad and very angry.
(I like people that DO good, rather than just talk about doing good.)
I don’t think facebook is not the right place to advertise oneself as a good person when the person you are actually to trying to reach is suffering in a hospital or starving on the streets.
I really think people should reflect very critically on what they post online. What is your motivation and do other people need (and want) to know? None of the friends mentioned above ever did mouth-to mouth propaganda for themselves in my physical presence, so why do they post to the online community information they would not tell friends, family, neighbours or co-workers? I think facebook is great to keep in touch with friends and read funny memes but it should not be misunderstood as stage for people to commemorate and propagate how awesome, special or different they are by spewing out sensitive information.
