Are you angry yet?

We’ve had a weird four or five years don’t you think? What with lots of stories flying around social media, many with the potential to cause upset and raid the hackles.

Here, in my opinion, is why.

You see an outrageous piece you get emotionally wound up by it, so you post it on social media.

Someone else sees it and either agrees or doesn’t. If they agree, they often share it or post with the link to the piece on their timeline and before you know it, it’s popping up everywhere.

And below it in the thread, people are vociferously agreeing or disagreeing, tempers get raised and on and on it goes.

But what’s also true is that in this time when the news is so easy to get out there, it’s also so easy to get rumours and misinformation out there as well.

What you have to remember though, is that the media is looking to sensationalise everything. It gets your attention.

We live in a world in which numerous publishers generate income from pay-per-click advertising. Why else do you think you see so many adverts on a page in amongst the editorials? The more readers an article gets the more customers and more revenue.

That’s why we see more and more biased and sensational reporting. It gets you reading. It’s all about the money!

The media is doing its best to manipulate you and your emotions. Just don’t fall for it.

And we’re seeing more and more news sites on the net, more special interest groups, more activist web sites.

Call me a cynic if you want, but I look at them with adverts all over the pages and can’t help but think it’s all about the money.

And yet people see it on the net and take what they’re reading at face value. Their emotions are heightened and then they spread around social media getting more involved in the narrative and everyone clicking on the links to the story and it is contributing to the source’s income.

Even when it’s a fabricated source people fall for it. We appear to have become more gullible.

I stopped taking things like this at face value and getting all hot and bothered about it a while back.

I rarely share anything because I don’t want to keep it going.

I think that we really need to should start looking a bit deeper before we share everything that we see.

But what can we do?

For starters, check the source. Is the piece anonymous? If you can’t trace who wrote it can you believe it?

Don’t believe everything they’ve quoted, especially if they’ve quoted someone else. If they’ve not checked their source properly and it’s wrong, they’ll just say it’s the original source’s fault.

When you read a quote, it’s usually been picked out because the writer wants you to think a certain way, positive or negative. But is that quote taken in the context of the subject the speaker was talking about?

Pretty much anything we say can be turned around used against us if it’s put in a different perspective. What was the person actually trying to say? The only way to know is to read the original piece and not just the quote.

If it’s sensational and sounds unbelievable, chances are that if you think it is, it is! Does the piece try to show both sides of the story or is it biased? Are there dubious motives about the piece?

Are all media covering the story in the same way? If they’re not all saying the same thing, then it’s probably not as straightforward as you think.

And, I suppose, you really need to ask yourself do you need to share it? Have you fact-checked that it’s right or are you taking it at face value?

Do you need to share it now? Does it really need to be shared?

People are trying hard to get us to believe their point of view in order to gain an advantage over us. It’s how it is.

Yes, I’m cynical. You may think I’m talking rubbish. You don't have to agree with me, it's just my opinion. But don’t you owe it to yourself to check before you share?

I’ve seen so many sensation headlines over the last four or five years. There have been so many stories where the truth’s been bent just enough to make you get emotional enough to get wound up.

And all the time, the pay per click income keeps rolling on in.

The choice is yours...

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Why write a blog?

 

The question is...why would I want to start a blog?

There’s a multitude of answers really.

The first one is that to be honest, I’m getting sick of social media. 

I left Twitter because it just felt toxic, full of keyboard bullies.

I never really ‘got’ Twitter and how it works. For starters, who’s ever known me to speak less than 150 characters? I’m not succinct enough for that.

And why all the hatred? It’s always seemed a venomous platform to me. Sadly, over the last four or five years, Facebook is heading in the same direction.

I understand it’s there for all of us to give our opinions. And let’s face it, the way the events have happened over the last few years, there’s plenty to have opinions on, but what used to be a place I went to get away from the humdrum routine of life, has now become even worse than that!

I stopped watching the news years ago because they only want to talk about the contentious, nasty side of life. I don’t need that. Life’s hard enough without voluntarily letting them make me feel worse every day.

But now, Social media is full of people who feel that they need to tell everyone what’s wrong with the World. Sadly, it’s taken over from a platform that I used to go to for fun. I understand that’s how it should be, everyone should be allowed to have their ‘voice.’ But it’s becoming too divisive for me. And I want to go there less and less.

Don’t get me wrong – people who know me personally will tell you that I’m opinionated and if I’ve got something to say, I’ll say it. But that will be in a face to face conversation. Not having a go at people in an arena where it’s not going to make a blind bit of difference.

However, you’d be right in thinking that I have a lot to say on Facebook – and what’s more, I’m going to be doing it here as well.

What I try not to do is get involved in slanging matches. If I’m having a rant, I try not to make it political. I try not to make it religious. I try not to aim it at any one person. I tend to speak generally.

Is it because I have a huge ego and feel that I need to be heard? Well, I’m not sure I have a huge ego. It’s a pretty good one, I’m happy in my skin and I quite like me (that took a lot of years though), but not so much that I think I’m anyone special.

So why do I want followers? I’m not really sure. I do think what I have to say will ring a bell with some people, may make some people laugh at times, and a multitude of other reasons. I’m not even sure that wanting followers is my main reason for writing a blog

What I’ve found out over the last 10 years or more, is that often, when I’m writing, it helps to clarify my own thoughts. I do it as much for me as for any other reason.

It helps me think and put my thoughts into a clear order. I’ve known myself to change my opinion during the writing of something.

Had I known that writing would do that, I’d have taken to writing a diary years ago (something I’ve never done).

In fact, until I joined Facebook, I didn’t really write anything. I’d keep scraps of paper with lists. I’d have notebooks with notes of things that I wanted to remember and could refer back to, but as to my thoughts, I never did.

Originally, I only joined Facebook in order to promote my discos. I’m not sure what happened, but along the way, that changed, and from never writing anything personal, I became the kind of person who would write drivel like this!

And one of the other reasons (and final one I’m going to talk about today), is to leave something in writing that my boys can read and understand their Dad a bit more.

I live 200 miles away from them and speak to them on a fairly regular basis, but they don’t really know what I’m like as a person anymore. 

I left them almost 11 years ago when my marriage broke up (at my instigation), and which was my fault. It caused a rift with both of them and it took a while for our relationships to get back on course.

Neither of them likes Social Media that much. Although they’re both on Facebook, James, the eldest hasn’t been on there for over 5 years and Henry, my youngest, only goes on there once in a blue moon. They just think it’s not a very nice place. In consequence, they hardly read anything I've written.

I’m hoping that they may well check this out once in a while and get a better idea of who their ‘old man’ is. Because I’m not the same person I was then.

Over the last 10 years, a lot has happened to make me feel differently, especially with my health issues which changed me and the way I think about life. Reading this may help them understand the man I’ve become.

And so,  that’s just a few reasons why I’ve chosen to write a blog.

I’m not sure what I’m going to write about, but I’ll do my best to try and make it entertaining.

If you’ve not subscribed to the newsletter yet, please do. It'll be a weekly thing, which will save you reading the blog every five minutes when I feel like contributing. And what's more, I’ll try to keep it entertaining and sometimes, even enlightening!

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Till next time...