Like a lot of things on social media #ThrowbackThursdays has become quite the addiction. I actually travelled up north to see my Mum earlier this year and brought back with me a box full of pictures from my childhood so I had more images to post. Now that’s either dedication or just plain sad; I’m thinking the latter.
We all give so much information away on social media that I suppose it stands to reason we also want to share things BFB (before FaceBook). Is it egotistical? (well, yes) but a large part of it is us wanting to share who we are. Not just who we are now but also who we were and find friends who are compatible with the real us. Gone are the days where we would form friendships with people after one drunken conversation in a bar, now we only want like-minded people around us. And why shouldn’t we? Many of my friendships have fallen apart because we just didn’t have that much in common. In my early twenties, I shared a huge part of my life with a group of friends who I believed would be around forever. Where are they now? Who knows! I’ve not seen or heard from them since 2006.
I can foresee many advantages and disadvantages from “auditioning” friends this way. If we all stick to groups of friends with like-minded views and opinions, we wouldn’t hear or even listen to anyone else’s viewpoint. We all believe in what we think and say but there are times when we are wrong. If we are constantly surrounded by friends qualifying and not questioning what we say, how are we to learn anything new? As humans, we have the intelligence to be able to change our minds when we receive new information. Luckily new information is free-flowing from many sources now thanks to the internet, social media and television and even with a whole group of people singing the same song as us, we still have the ability to rethink our initial beliefs.
As the most intelligent animals on the planet (sod off dolphins – show me your master’s degree and we’ll talk!), we should always have an open mind and be accepting of new information to ponder over and even act upon. The world we live in is forever changing and we should to be ready to accept that the knowledge we currently have is in constant flux. The things we know as truths today could very easily be proved as falsehoods in the future.
So remember when selecting those FaceBook friends, it’s good to have people on there who will question your posts and even suggest information to the contrary. They may be wrong but sometimes they will be right and should be ready for that eventuality. As much as we may despise being proved wrong, it’s better to admit it than to continue preaching your views to an audience who has already moved on.
And in the spirit of #ThrowbackThursday here is a picture of me from around 1983 in Skegness, Lincolnshire.
#TerryGee