To unfriend or not

Are you a "Hider" or an "Unfriender"? You know, those people on Facebook you've simply lost patience with (for whatever reason) and are tired of seeing their posts: do you put up with it, hide them from your feed, or unfriend (or, like so many anymore, you've pretty much stopped looking at Facebook altogether)?

Jason Wilbur (yes, John Prine's guitarist) shared this a couple weeks ago:

With regard to Friends who post batshit crazy stuff on Facebook. Do you unfriend them or not?

Some Arguments for unfriending: You don’t have to see their posts. If you don’t respond and they are friends, your silence may be interpreted as complicity. If you do respond, you may get dragged into an argument with a bunch of people who can’t or don’t want to engage in a rational discussion.

Some Arguments against unfriending: Surrounding yourself with people that agree with you doesn’t do much to promote growth and critical thinking. Just because someone has different ideas about one thing doesn’t mean you can’t find common ground on other things.

I used to unfriend people fairly regularly. Of course, it seemed many of them were people I didn't really know anyway, or at least didn't want to be friends with. Then I decided maybe that wasn't very friendly of me, so I tried to scroll past as best as I could. I would hide someone occasionally - mostly because they simply shared too much stuff - but not a lot.

During this pandemic I started getting fed up with people and I have hidden a bunch of people. Shoot, I may have more friends hidden than I have seen! Sure, there are still a few I don't agree with that I look at. We agree on some things, and they used to be pretty funny.

Lately, though, I've started unfriending again. I'm sick of it. I'm a little sick of a lot of things anymore, and it's getting more and more difficult to give a damn.

It doesn't help that I'm feeling like quitting my job again, and I'm literally afraid tRump is going to get re-elected, and I anticipate the nations school system is going to turn into one big sh!tstorm, and our days are numbered before we get the virus, and our finances will likely go down the tubes, and... and... and...

Anyway, I'm in a mood, and I'm also not fond of the changes to the blogger interface, so... that's all for now.

***

Psalm 119:130

"The unfolding of your words gives light;
    it gives understanding to the simple."