Be careful who your friends are they may shame you.

This past week’s discussion was about public shaming and its role in ruining people’s lives in a number of ways. Numerous tales exist online about how people who have been publicly have had their lives ruined, to the extent that some were willing to end their lives over these events. One of the best quotes that I read from the Facebook posts this week was that people need to stop and think about whether the joke they are about to say or post is worth a lifetime of humiliation if someone takes it the wrong way or intentionally twists it so that they can portray you as a horrible person for whatever reason they choose. Another good piece of advice that goes along with the above scenario is to always assume that you are not with friends due to the nature of social media connecting more and more people that previously would have never spoken more than a few times. To counteract this you can be more conscious or you can be more careful who you allow into your social media circle and still risk that someone will share it and it will become public. The other aspect of public shaming we spoke about was the use of it to discipline children. While the methods of punishment may be effective and they may deserve it is never appropriate to publicly shame your children. This is due to the fact that it will always be there and anytime they see it online or have to talk about it they will have to relive the moment. The broad scope or social media also means that more people will see it and there will be little to no chance to defend yourself or deny that you meant harm.

                The last thing I would like to touch on in this blog is the new term of slacktivism. I can see how people think that they are doing the right thing and spreading information that is vital to others but in reality they often fall victim to false information and rarely get involved enough to actually make a difference due to feeling like they have already done their part by sharing information.