I’ve discovered a problem with Facebook.
I looked through a day’s worth of posts the other day, and noticed a pattern.
Everyone’s talking. Nobody’s listening.
We all have opinions about things. And we all believe we’re right.
When we see someone expressing their opinion on Facebook, we tend to evaluate it based on what we believe. If we agree, we think, “great post.” If we disagree, we think, “they just don’t get it.”
But I can’t remember a time when I’ve read a strong opinion posted on Facebook and thought, “Wow. That makes so much sense. It’s the opposite of what I’ve always believed. You’ve convinced me to change my mind. Thanks so much.”
That’s true in real life, too. If we’re talking, and you simply tell me what you think — implying that it’s absolutely true and there’s no room for discussion, it implies that I’m crazy if I don’t agree with you.
That’s the problem with Facebook. It’s an easy place to tell people what we think. But it’s not a great place to build relationships. When we use it to convince people to change their minds, we only irritate them. It doesn’t build relationships – that happens life-on-life.
The only way you’ll change my mind is when we have a genuine relationship:
- You care about me.
- I care about you.
- You accept me the way I am.
- You’re genuinely interested in me.
- I’m genuinely interested in you.
- You don’t share all my opinions, but you like me anyway.
- We listen to each other.
When that happens, I’ll be seriously interested in your opinions. We can talk about it, because we trust each other.
Someone said that God gave us two ears and one mouth, which says something about how much we should use them.
I like Facebook. I’m thinking that we should accept Facebook for what it is – a great tool to stay on each other’s radar, to stay current on we’re doing, and share pictures. It’s fun.
But if we want to impact and influence each other, let’s go hang out and do life together.
How do you feel about Facebook? Comment below:
‘Like’. 🙂
Clever . . . !
Some great points Mike.. let’s get coffee in the next few weeks and talk about it. I’d like to hear what you’ve been up to.
Thanks, Bruce – We’ll connect soon . . .