Social Networking and Personal Beliefs. Can they sit comfortably together?-

I have been finding my place on certain social networks a little uncomfortable of late. Facebook has without any doubt become a massive part of my, and many of my peers, social interactions. It is the place I go to discuss trivial issues, to laugh with friends and to share highs and lows of the week. As a working mum I get little time to go out and socialise so often discussions via these sites becomes a little like a night in the pub - chatting and passing banter with friends who are likewise stuck at home with small children. Honestly I have no idea what I would do with myself of an evening if it were not for Facebook, Twitter, G+ and the like. They are lifelines in a pretty lonely world when my children are asleep and the husband is working late. So those are all positives. I have made new friends, acquaintances and a few enemies but all in all it replicates real life in many ways.


However, as social networking replaces socialising in the lives of many it makes me question what is and is not appropriate discussion topics, or is it a case of anything goes? I remember by ex Mother in Law telling me that religion and politics and any 'extremist' views were not subjects to be discussed at a dinner party. (Although men were allowed to discuss politics after dinner with their port and cigars. Honesty I don't have enough rolly eyes for this and let me tell you she alone could provide and entire blog entry of epic proportion) But I am drifting off track. She is correct in so far as in polite social situations some subjects are off limits. Facebook doesn't appear to comply to these social 'standards'. It is a place where it appears anything is acceptable, any view, opinion, foul language, sexually explicit detail is acceptable under the proviso that it is accompanied by a clear "if you don't like what I'm saying, delete me." I suppose this is something that you can't do at a dinner party (although I have been to many when I truly wish there had been an option to 'unfriend and block')


My difficulty is that there are people on my social networks that I truly like - people I wouldn't dream of deleting yet I find the repetition of their strong views on subjects close to their hearts somewhat grating. And I suppose we are on the whole ALL guilty of using social media as a billboard for our beliefs and life views, but SHOULD we? Would we stand in a pub with our friends every night of the week and repeatedly push our strong opinions on our friends? I use several examples (at the risk of offending, but hopefully simply sparking debate): Firstly one of my own, something I did across all my social media - with good intent but which with hindsight may have been misguided. Following my closest friend losing her baby at full term, I felt utterly impotent. Completely unable to do anything to take away her pain, ease her suffering or share what she was going through. Over the year since she has lost her daughter she has fought to raise awareness of stillbirth, lobbying MP's, fundraising for SANDS and Tommys, marathon running and organising other charity events - all of it very visibly on her social networks. In absolute support of her I re-posted links to articles about stillbirth, asked my online friends to read these heartbreaking reports and statistics. Was I wrong to do that? Is it wrong to raise awareness via social media for something you feel this passionately about? I ask myself would I have stood in a pub 3 nights of the week and discuss the UK's appalling stillbirth statistics over a drink. The answer is no. I may have confided in people quietly, one to one, over a coffee but I wouldn't have stood in a group of 20 or 30 or more people whose personal experience of such a topic was unknown to me and made them all listen. This is effectively what I did by posting articles on my news feed. Does the argument "If they don't like it they can delete me" stand up? Not really. I didn't want anyone to delete me. I wanted them to take notice, to be as shocked and stunned and angry as I was and to take action. But of course they wouldn't. They couldn't. Because they weren't me - they hadn't had this terrible thing happen to a dear friend. They weren't raw and hurting from the cruelty and unfairness that something so devastating had happened to someone so close. They could sympathise, but not get angry. 


So that brings me to my next example (the one that will likely lose me friends and alienate people). Breastfeeding. Inevitable being that I have a large number of mum friends on my networking sites. All of them are amazing, supportive and hilarious (see - I'm softening them up so they won't hate me as much!) Many of them are passionate about breastfeeding, angry about the way formula is promoted, angry that support, information and help is not available to so many new mums. They are single-minded in their desire to help new mums and improve breastfeeding rates.  They react the way I reacted to Stillbirth. They post links, information, statistics and photo's. Now I truly have no objection to the majority of this but sometimes it crosses a line. Sometimes it goes too far and makes those that didn't or couldn't breastfeed simply feel, well, pretty shit really. Its not nice to see every time you log onto your PC that the "choices" you made when feeding your child were the wrong ones (even if 'choice' had been taken away from you). Its not nice to be told that the first nutrition your infant had was "no substitute" or to find out long after the event and far too late that perhaps you DID have a choice. So we go back to the point, would I stand in a pub with a group of friends and have them tell me I was wrong, that my children had been given a rubbish start in life, that I should have done things differently. Probably. I would probably have had the debate or discussion once. Would I stand by and have it brought up every time I went to the pub, sometimes 5 nights of the week? Most certainly not. Yet I totally understand the passion and desire to make things better and to raise awareness. My question is, is social networking among friends whose situations you don't fully understand the place to do it?


Another example. I am an animal lover, a vegetarian, someone who is passionate about the ethics of where our food comes from and that it is sourced in a moral, ethical and environmentally viable way. Animal cruelty of any kind hurts and upsets me to my very soul. However, do I wish to see graphic photographs of animal abuse or homeless and starving animals when I log onto my PC? Of course I don't, yet I understand the emotion that drives a person to post such pictures. They simply want others to feel the same as they are. To get angry and feel motivated to make changes to the world. Is it wrong to do that? Of course it's not wrong to feel like that, it's very human, but do I want to see it? Not really. Would the same person that posts these images whip out a file of photos or beaten and abused dogs and place them all over the table in the bar? No. No sane person would, however passionate they were to the cause. 


So is it that it is easier to air your personal beliefs from behind a screen than face to face? Or that reaching a wider audience fulfils our need to be empowered to make change? It's easier to say things without seeing a response, without seeing people get upset, bored or angry. It makes us feel good to promote our causes and beliefs and to feel as though we have a voice - however small. And if it does make a difference, and makes the world a better place, perhaps upsetting some of the people, some of the time makes it worth while. 


It is very clear from the recent Kony 2012 viral video that social networking has completely changed the way we can bring about awareness - but is awareness without change worth the status its written on?