Someone asked me about The Great Facebook Purge of 2014 because “I don’t have time to read magazines, newspapers and certainly not blogs so it would be helpful if you told me what it was about.
I told them since it was clear they were far too busy to deal with trivialities like Facebook status updates not to worry about it and immediately unfriended them.
That might be be an exaggeration but aren’t most Facebook status updates exaggerations in which we portray a perfect life or am I the only one who only provides updates that make you wish you were leading my life.
Or maybe not.
Those of you who are actually Facebook friends know my status updates lean towards the silly because we spend way too much time focused on the serious.
78 Ways To Use Social Media To Insult People & Create Enemies
I suppose this is a good time to tell you I am not really going to provide you with a list of 78 ways to use social media to insult people and create enemies.
It is not because I can’t come up with a ridiculous list of things you can do to achieve that goal. Hell I wrote a post called Is It Really More Fun To Be Evil?
That was sort of tongue-in-cheek as was My Facebook Confession but the general message I have been focused upon for a while wasn’t.
One of the biggest disappointments in my life now are the number of people I know who don’t understand that Different Is Not Wrong.
It is ok to disagree with people. It is ok to challenge your beliefs and ask yourself questions about why you believe as you do.
Except it seems many people don’t like to have their beliefs challenged and find that your doing so is offensive.
I teach my children to stand up for what they believe in and work with them on trying to figure out how to determine what merits fighting for and what doesn’t.
Not everything is worth having defending or fighting for.
What Do I Need To Know
I try to be cautious about whom I hand out my email address to because my inbox has been inundated with important information that is useless to me.
When I receive useless information I make a mental note about how and why I responded that way because as a writer/marketer I never want my target audience to react like that.
That kind of response is generated because the copy is poorly written and or the targeting is poorly constructed. It generally leads to unsubscribing and or marking newsletters as spam.
The thing is some of the content might truly be important but it is a question of to whom.
Earlier today I read that Ohio is opening up Adoption records that had previously been closed. If you are around 50 years old or younger and were adopted there you might have an opportunity to find out more about your birth parents.
I am not adopted and I am not from Ohio so my need to know this is limited but I receive emails that have as much relevance in my life as that information all the time.
As it happens I know a bunch of people from Ohio and some of them read this blog so including that information in here might actually be of interest and or useful for them.
And those of you who are long time readers know that I am a big proponent of trying to write posts that useful, interesting, educational and or interesting.
Hit those marks and your readers will always be happy to read your content but only if you hit more than you miss.
What Do I Need To Know- A Comment About Homework
A thousand years ago I sat in my Algebra II class and asked my teacher to justify why we had to learn certain things. I don’t remember his exact response but I remember it being tied into my grade and the irritation I felt afterwards.
It is not particularly hard to irritate a teenager and I was an easy mark because I knew better than most adults who were too dumb to recognize that we could do all the work on calculators.
Save the comments about how obnoxious that was because I can see it now and fortunately I did grew up.
That being said I am now on the other side of the homework fence and I often find myself asking why my kids seem to constantly be overloaded with significant amounts of homework.
But I am still asking the same question as I did then, albeit in slightly different fashion.
What are these teachers asking my children to learn about? What benefit will learning this provide and is it a good use of their time?
That is obviously not something that can be answered in 14o characters, a Facebook status update or a short blog post but that doesn’t remove the value and importance of the question either.
Maybe it just shows that even when I am acting in my civilian role as a parent I am still thinking about content and how to make it interesting, educational and entertaining.
