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Showing posts from July, 2015

Policing Facebook

My husband says I’m a contrarian who disagrees just to disagree. To which I say, “No, I’m not. You’re wrong!” A friend shared this blog column on Facebook and I basically disagreed with every word. First and foremost — and viscerally — I disagree with policing what other people post on Facebook and shaming them for failing to follow someone else’s arbitrary standard. It’s an authoritarian impulse that I understand — dear Lord if I could prevent all sports-related posts, I would! I would! — but let's call it what it is and not cloak it in some kind of moral high ground. We can have our personal pet peeves without dressing them up as proof of society's decline.   And to be clear, these are arbitrary standards we're talking about. I’ve written before about the social media conundrum that if you only post positive things about your life and happy-smiling pictures, you’re criticized for image-branding. But if you post honest comments about depression or divo

On raising boys and the rights of unmarried fathers

Nobody uses Facebook anymore. Hello! Two teenagers tried to explain Snapchat to me this week. It turns out it's not just for sexting . It's for sexting AND sending your friends pictures that aren't worthy of being kept. Frankly, that sounds even worse. I enjoy Facebook's feed of baby pictures and trip updates, but if you're going to interrupt my day with a picture I can only view for 10 seconds, at least make it worth my while and show some leg. Lord knows I don't need to keep up with what you're eating for lunch today. But I digress. My chief question at the end of the lesson was, "But how do you post articles and essays and have conversations about philosophical questions that are interesting to you but don't involve pictures?" The answer is, you don't. Apparently teenagers are not that big into sharing news articles. What. Ever. On that note, here's an interesting Atlantic article I stumbled across while looking up Cory Booker