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Anonymity Doesn't Give You the Right to be Ugly
Think before you type and hit that send button! God knows we all have opinions and the Internet allows us to share them others want to hear them or not. The nice thing about blogs is that people can share their opinions and you don't have to read them. People tend to visit blogs of like minded individuals or they are searching out specific information. But even on blogs, you should be thinking a little bit about what you say. Would you say these things to the people you are saying them about if they were standing in front of you?
I am all for freedom of speech, but I think we should also stick to the old adage that if you don't have something nice to say, you shouldn't say anything at all. And if you are compelled to say something ugly, try to say it in as pleasant terms as possible, sticking in words like, this is my opinion.
And beyond blogging there are the comments that people make on blogs and the emails people send. How many times have you had a bad day, gotten an email, took it the wrong way and fired back an ugly exchange? Then you were left trying to repair a relationship or hurt feelings. Our tongues and the words we let fly loose are a constant thing to be vigilant over. We can do more damage with our words than we could ever do with our fists. We can chip away at people in bits, or knock off huge sections all at once, when we are inattentive to the things we say.
Today I read an article about an overweight woman who only realized she was pregnant two days before the baby was born and she got horrible emails and comments about her weight and implications that that made her a bad mother. These are statements from perfect strangers who know nothing about her or why she has a weight problem. Apparently people sharing their unwanted opinions has become the way life is these days.
So, please, take a moment, think before you write. You can still say the same thing later if you still feel that way. But type the words, save, don't send, then go back to read it when you are in a calmer mood and see if that is what you really want to say. In the days before instant email and chat groups, we either had to call, write a letter or go see a person we wanted to fuss at. And we often curb our tongue in face to face encounters or even over the phone because the other person is there to talk immediately back. When writing a letter, the effort of writing the letter actually calms you and takes the wind out of your sails. Years ago in counselling, a counsellor suggested to my husband and I that we have arguments on paper. It always made us stick to the issue at hand...who wanted to write down words bringing in dozens of other issues or the other person's mother!?
So before you send your bullets flying across the internet...think, how would you feel if those words came flying back at you...
