{"id":22729,"date":"2017-01-15T08:59:12","date_gmt":"2017-01-15T13:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=22729"},"modified":"2017-01-15T08:59:14","modified_gmt":"2017-01-15T13:59:14","slug":"social-media-mayhem-can-we-learn-to-agree-to-disagree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=22729","title":{"rendered":"Social media mayhem: can we learn to agree to disagree?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Kelly Hockenberry<\/strong>, Columnist, The Times<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a>The inauguration is only a few days away and the chatter on social media is beginning to escalate. I guess it\u2019s no wonder considering the President-Elect is \u201csomewhat\u201d of a Twitter fan. If history is our guide, we should be prepared to be inundated with a flood of online opinions come Friday.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll admit, I was shocked by the back and forth on Facebook following the election. Tensions mounted and tempers flared. Grown-ups were acting more like middle schoolers. If you expressed an opinion or liked or shared an article, it was met with criticism.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not talking about the imbeciles who were blatantly derogatory. I don\u2019t have the time or the patience for that sort of thing. I\u2019m referring to a more subtle reaction. When the dust settled, I noticed people were starting to post comments about keeping things \u201clight\u201d and how political opinions had no place on Facebook. In my opinion, as long as the dialogue is open, honest, and respectable, social media can be a great platform for self-expression. If you don\u2019t \u201clike\u201d it because I espouse a certain worldview, does it mean that we can no longer be friends? I would hope not.<\/p>\n

I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 \u201cfriends\u201d on Facebook. Truth be told, I don\u2019t think I even know that many people. It\u2019s stupid. Posting your feelings about life and waiting for people to approve or comment is creepy. I know that I\u2019m not the only person who feels this way.<\/p>\n

Have you watched Black Mirror? It\u2019s the latest binge-worthy show from NetFlix. Each episode is a different story with new characters and plot; but, according to creator Charlie Booker, \u201cthey\u2019re all about the way we live now – and the way we might be living in 10 minutes\u2019 time if we\u2019re clumsy\u201d. (Wikipedia).<\/p>\n

The specific episode I need you to see is called \u201cNosedive\u201d. It depicts a world in which our social media rating dictates our quality of life. Don\u2019t have the necessary 5 stars from your friends? Well, you may not get to live or work where you want to. Imagine having to fake how you really <\/i>feel in order to attain a more desirable ranking from your \u201cfriends.\u201d Sounds sinister, doesn\u2019t it? I don\u2019t think it\u2019s too far off the mark from what we experience these days.<\/p>\n

How do we address this issue? For one, I think having an open mind to the opinions and philosophies of others is a good start. Secondly, agreeing to respectfully disagree may be the way to preserve those relationships where you can\u2019t see eye to eye. We\u2019ll have the perfect opportunity to practice on January 20th.<\/p>\n

What do you think? Please comment in the section below.<\/p>\n

Happy Weekend<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Kelly Hockenberry, Columnist, The Times The inauguration is only a few days away and the chatter on social media is beginning to escalate. I guess it\u2019s no wonder considering the President-Elect is \u201csomewhat\u201d of a Twitter fan. If history is our guide, we should be prepared to be inundated with a flood of online […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22731,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[7894,7207,8422,302,6518,8421,1844,8420],"class_list":["post-22729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-comments","tag-donald-j-trump","tag-expression","tag-facebook","tag-featured","tag-free-speech","tag-opinion-2","tag-social-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22729"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22730,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22729\/revisions\/22730"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}