Why Picking Your Social Media Battles Can Save Your Sanity

By Lorna O’Hara — ROAR

‘It’s not my job to educate everyone’

I repeat this over and over in my head before I type out yet another online comment in which I make it my job to try and educate everyone. I’ve never been very good at following my own advice. If someone says something ignorant or short-sighted, it’s incredibly difficult for me to just let it lie. I have to have the last word, especially online. This has obviously been a mixed bag: sometimes it feels worth it, other days it doesn’t. Today was one of those days.

This time I got into an argument and was torn apart by a gang of people I didn’t know on a friend’s Facebook page. I tried to be as diplomatic as possible, but — as we all know — the internet is not a great place for interpreting a person’s tone. At the same time, I’m not going to make excuses for these people. There wasn’t a genuine misinterpretation of my tone. They simply weren’t there for a debate; they were there to protect their world view and did not want to listen to any nuance or criticism thereof. I had carefully chosen my words so as not to be inflammatory — I mean I basically tone-policed myself — and still someone took issue with the way I said what I said rather than the content. After the third or fourth vitriol-filled comment, it was quite clear what I was…