Appropriately Managing Mutual Friends on Facebook Starts With Helping Each other’s Pursuits
Facebook is one of the most positively influential platforms in the world today. On the flip side though, I have observed that it can be used to spread hate, and unfortunately so.
I have on several occasions experienced many Facebook enthusiasts spreading some form of hate to their former friends turned foes.
The worst of it is when friends go gun blazing to persuade mutual friends to hate on their current subject of dislike.
Picture this: You are friends with John and John is a friend to Peter. When you are not in good terms with John, you get so determined and even swear by your forefathers’ names that you will influence Peter to hate on John.
In some cases, your motives could just be based on ungrounded assumptions that just because John and Peter keep tagging each other on Facebook posts, that indeed they are great of friends, or even business partners.
Here is my advice to Facebook users on this matter:
1. Use Facebook as a platform for spreading love and be good to all people that you meet on the platform, whether you know them in person or not since you never know when you might end up meeting in real life to seek their help.
2. If any of your good friends end up turning unfriendly for some reason, manage it without dragging your mutual friends into your unfortunate situation. You never know, your disagreement might only last a short while before you get back to good terms.
3. Avoid throwing mud balls on others through social media. The people who are on your friends’ list have been presented to you by a higher being, for you to influence them positively.
4. Always remember that social media never forgets. The things that you post today, even if you delete them tomorrow may have already been picked by a quick screenshot and may end up haunting you some 10 or 20 years to come.
5. Your close friends may also be my close friends, and when you fall out with them, they do not necessarily become my automatic enemies just because you and I are friends. On the other hand, those who do not like me may actually be your good friends and that should just be fine with me.
6. Both in-person and social media spaces, it is good to respect other people’s spaces, opinions, and world views, regardless of their associations or beliefs.
In conclusion, the world needs you and me and using social media to spread hate and complicate life only leads to stress, depression, and anxiety.
Let us all use social media to build ourselves, to encourage each other’s pursuits to attain our visions, let is always learn to forgive misdeeds, be the light of each other and forge for a better tomorrow.
