Morning Mess — Too much on social media

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/04/2015 (4051 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If you’re on Facebook, chances are you have friends who share too much. We all have them. Someone who feels compelled to share every waking moment of every day on the social media website.

Here’s what I ate for breakfast, followed by pictures of how I dressed myself today. That is followed by a picture of what I ate for dinner in the restaurant I ate it in. If you’re lucky, I also posted what the weather was like on my way to lunch.

Then it’s more updates on the rest of my workday, pictures of my ride home, followed by my cat and me watching “Housewives of Beverly Hills” and another picture of food.

The thing is, some of the biggest offenders of “over posting” aren’t single people out in the clubs every night, or the young couple with two high paying jobs sharing all the great stuff they’re buying with their wealth.

Nothing on Facebook brings about more posts, more pictures and more comments than children.

Even as late as the mid-’90s, you would look forward to visiting with relatives over the spring break to get caught up on all the pictures from all the adventures. Grandma and grandpa would sit at the kitchen table as mom would pass pictures around the table of the family vacation after Christmas, Little Johnny’s hockey tournament in Winnipeg, a cross-border weekend, some ice fishing in late spring, and a birthday party or two for good measure.

There were envelopes filled with pictures and real conversation.

Those days are long gone.

Instead, we see the family vacation unfold in real time, even conversing while on said vacation. We get more updates from the hockey tournament than TSN updates from the NHL. And the cross-border weekend turns into a full-on debate on the merits of cross-border shopping.

All of which is simply change.

But we’ve all had the relative sit at that same old table and pull out 10 photo albums, 13 envelopes and two six-hour home videos to watch. Our reaction: “Oh. My. Gosh.” How long is this gonna take. Really? You took that many pictures?

Fast-forward 15 years and those same 10 photo albums parents are posting in real time. Instead of being choked on a weekly or monthly or quarterly visit, many users of Facebook instead are choked daily, with pictures of “my kids doing everything and anything under the sun 24-7.” Aren’t we lucky!

Recently Facebook went into meltdown, and so did the StarFM Morning Mess Radio Show when we shared the story of an Australian mother, who claimed she received an angry letter from a group of friends.

These so-called “friends” apparently asked her to stop with the constant updates and “baby spamming” on social media about her six-month-old baby.

“I have got together with a few of the girls and we are all SO OVER your running commentary of your life and every single thing Addy does.” The letter continues: “We can’t wait for you to get back to work — maybe you won’t have time to be on Facebook quite so much.”

The friends didn’t take out their anger on Addy, though. “Addy is gorgeous and we all love her, but our kids are great, too.”

The group of “friends” felt they were speaking for everyone. “Not everyone is as interested as you are about what Addy does, so give us all a break. We’re doing this to let you know what people really think.”

It really does bring up an interesting debate about how much is too much on social media. The majority of people responding to the letter on Facebook defended the mother. And predictably, our Facebook page nearly crashed and our phone lines lit up.

Here is but a tiny sample:

• Maria Scholte — You would think that people who also say they’re mothers would do better things with their time. Seems like a lot of jealousy. Hope their kids don’t inherent their nasty streak.

• Janell Taylor — What a bunch of cowards. They could have told her in person or signed their names at least! Don’t worry, girl — you don’t need people like that in your life.

• L. June Dunn — That is such a terrible thing to do. Block her if you do not want to hear about her girl but a lot of people talk about their children on Facebook and if you do not want to hear, maybe they need to get off Facebook.

• Brenda Moore-Taylor — I feel very sad and angry for this poor mom! A letter is a pure sign of cowardice but the words still hurt deeply. I hope you know there are nicer and better friends out there and the ones who sent you a letter rather than having the courage to speak to your face are not worthy of your friendship. As best you can, forgive them and move on.

• Alyssa Mclean — Yes, it’s a rude thing to do. But in the back or your minds, you probably know someone who does the same. Maybe some just don’t have as big a tolerance as others. It’s a little hard to judge if you don’t know the people personally or the situation.

• Chris Tataryn — Just unfollow the mom. It’s what everyone else does.

• Cindy Alexander — The people who post what they eat daily, what exercise they’re doing at every second of the day and a selfie every three minutes — DELETE!

• Julie Ferriss — That is horrible. Everyone gushes over new baby. What right does anyone have to tell her different? If she is on Facebook doing so much posting … and these others are seeing all the posts, does that not mean that they are on Facebook a lot, too?

One word of advice from the experts.

“Remember that social media is like a cocktail party. People watch what you do, what you say and who you speak with. More importantly, it’s important to make sure you are not constantly in the middle of the room screaming for attention.

“The same goes for oversharing. For if you wouldn’t share envelopes of countless child pictures, vacation pictures, fancy car pictures and more child pictures in the real world, you may want to rethink doing it online. Otherwise you may find you’re sharing with nobody other than yourself.”

Or you can post everything you’re doing, as you’re doing it, with whomever you’re spending time with. The choice is yours.

Just remember: In real life, bored family would just slowly leave the kitchen until a small handful remained. In social media, you may not even know they’ve left.

JOKE

A man walks into a bank with a large bag of cannabis.

“What do you want to do with this?” the clerk asks.

The man replies: “I want to open a joint account.”

BIRTHDAYS

Lori J. Giampa • Bonnie Rost • Vicki Hogarth-Davis • Sheri Harmeson • Angie Henderson • Amy Ryan

» Tyler Glen is a radio DJ on Star-FM. He writes a weekly column for the Brandon Sun. Twitter: @Tyler_Glen