Posts Tagged "facebook"

Restraint or Not To Restrain?

Dear Kid,

of course you're entitled to my opinion. All my opinions. DearKidLoveMom.comI was browsing Facebook (shocking, I know) and found a very interesting thought a friend of mine had posted:

So many things to say, but not one reason in the world to say them. Don’t you just wish this thought occurred to more people before they started typing????!!!! Just saying….

What was even more interesting to me were the comments people shared (and no, none of the comments were from me).

Commenter 1: When my son (now 21) first got Facebook, as “good” parents, we insisted on being his friend so we could monitor what he was doing and who he was conversing with. Early on, he had a post and I commented on it. Shortly thereafter, he came downstairs and said, “Mom…don’t write on my wall. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.” This has become our family mantra. I wish more people would take a minute to think about this before saying things they probably shouldn’t.

Commenter 2: I just heard on NPR that a teacher is sharing this acronym with her students: W.A.I.T. which stands for Why Am I Talking? If it serves no useful purpose, why talk?

Commenter 3: I have an opinion on everything. My very wise husband says, “yes, (sweetheart)….you are entitled to your opinion – but not everyone wants to hear it”

Just because you think something, does not mean you are required to share it for everyone and their brother to see (and by “everyone and their brother” I mean everyone on the planet who’s ever thought of being anywhere near social media).

What do you think? Are you entitled to say anything you think? Or should you show restraint?

Love, Mom

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Why It’s Not Possible to Get from Here to There | And a Meetup

Dear Kid,

I love my phone. Even with the huge spider-web of cracks, it’s purple and it lets me text and make calls.

But that’s not what I wanted to tell you about.

What is caffeine and why are you talking so fast? DearKidLoveMom.comLast night I went to a Meetup (yep, I’m cool and I went to a meetup) at Ahalogy (yep, I’m hip and I was at Ahalogy) where I met Susan (WHAT a generous soul—you can find her at www.workingmomsagainstguilt.com) and Amy (who was the cheerleader for some new ideas for me which will probably keep me awake for the next three nights—you can find her at www.ahealthylifeforme.com/) and a bunch of other people (you’re going to have to pile on the mom-love to get mentioned) and where I drank too much caffeine (if I didn’t care so much about punctuation this entire blog would be one sentence because that’s how it is in my head).

I did not eat an entire pizza while I was there (I had one slice) and I did not eat a cookie while I was there (“a cookie” means an entire cookie and these things were big enough to feed a small nation so I had a part of a cookie). I did get to show someone photos of the giant quarter. And I got to learn a lot about social media, blogging, and how to do things that will embarrass you greatly. But again, that’s not today’s topic.

The point (and yes, my dearest, there is a point) is that Ahalogy’s offices are located in a part of town I don’t frequent. Actually, it would be more accurate to say it’s a part of town I don’t ever.

The cracks have nothing to do with why I can't get directions on my phone. DearKidLoveMom.comSince I had no idea where I was going, I looked up directions before heading out. I am on top of things.

Only I forgot to write down directions to get home.

And for reasons that escape me entirely, I haven’t figured out how to get my phone to give me directions.

You—I know—have no problem with this. You say, “Phone, I need directions to XYZ” and it gives you clear and concise directions. Dad says, “Phone, I need directions to ABC” and poof! there are directions to ABC.

I say, “Phone, pretty please, might you take a small bit of your data and show me the way home?” and my phone laughs. Generally it guffaws. Last night it giggled so hard it fell off the seat, landing in my purse where it glowed contentedly the entire way home.

Fortunately, I have an excellent sense of direction so the 23 minute trip only took an hour and a half.

Did I mention my phone is purple?

Love, Mom

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Traveling by Portkey? Fiction Becomes Reality

Dear Kid,

Holy Moly! Facebook has gone and done it. The inconceivable (I do nah think tha’ word means wha’ you think it means) has happened. Our entire Universe has been turned upside down.

Yes. Facebook has brought the world of Harry Potter to life.

And by “the world of HP” I do not mean the theme park or the movies. I mean the actual world. Into our world.

On FB, you can now make your profile picture a short, looping video. Short as in 7 seconds. Looping as in will play over and over again making PLM (people like me) somewhat sea sick. Video as in pictures that move a la Harry Potter.

Mind boggling.

As soon as portkeys are real, this mom is going to do a lot of traveling. DearKidLoveMom.comOr possibly not as inventors constantly push technology to catch up to fiction. Or perhaps a better way to say it is that they push to turn fiction into non-fiction.

I don’t think I’ll be changing my picture to a video any time soon.

But as soon as portkeys are real, this mom is going to do a lot of traveling.

Love, Mom

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Facebook Thank Yous | What You Need to Know to Get It Right

Dear Kid,

There is an article on Mashable called How to use Facebook for Thank You Notes.

I found the title intriguing, so I took a look.

It will not surprise you to learn that I Have an Opinion.

The article suggested things like thanking someone for dinner by taking a photo of the meal and posting the picture with a thank you and compliments to the chef. Another idea was to thank someone for inviting you to an event by taking some pix of the event and posting those with some of the details about the event with a thank you for the invite. (Hint: include the hashtag for the event if there is one.)

Should you use Facebook to say "thank you"? DearKidLoveMom.comI think those are great ideas. They are acknowledgements of a great time together (presumably you’ve already said thank you in person) and a there’s nothing wrong with publicly acknowledging a big event or even a small dinner.

HOWEVER (you knew there was going to be a “however” didn’t you?), there are some things for which a tweet or Facebook post is not only inappropriate it can be downright rude.

When you get a gift from someone, you need to send a real thank you note—especially if the gift is sent to you and you are not able to hug the giver and say thank you in person. A FB thank you without a personalized, heartfelt thanks is just wrong and rude.

If you thank someone professionally, don’t use Twitter or Facebook. If they’ve introduced you to someone, if they’ve gone out of their way to help you, if you’ve made a sale, saying thank you on FB is weird. And unprofessional. And Wrong. Don’t do it.

If the person is not a social media junkie and/or is not part of your usual social media circle, why would you thank them in front of people they don’t know? Go personal, go private, go polished. Write a real thank you.

For a formal event you need formal thank yous. When you graduate, when you get engaged or married, when you receive a special honor, on-line thank yous don’t cut it. Formal congratulations require formal acknowledgements. Pull out the stationary and put pen to paper.

Thank you for listening.

Love, Mom

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Circular Stories and If You Give a Mom the Internet…

Dear Kid,

I was going to write a Great and Meaningful Blog for today, but then I had to check Facebook because I hadn’t been on in 48 hours and that’s really too long, and on FB I saw a link to 16 secret rules about Disney employees so I took just a quick look which led to a series of Disney characters dressed up for Halloween. When I finished that I realized I HAD to get out of Facebook land—but first I read just a couple of posts, and then I did shut down Facebook. At which point I realized that while I had checked Facebook and one email account I hadn’t checked the other email account and what if Something Important was there? I checked the other account. Nothing important, but there was a link to an article on LinkedIn about words you should never use on your resume and that seemed important so I read the article (nothing new).

I love My Friend the Internet DearKidLoveMom.comThen I really was going to get to work on the Great and Meaningful Blog, but I remembered I was going to look up why fancy soup bowls have wide brims. I’m pretty sure they aren’t called brims, but I didn’t find out because when I got as far as fancy soup I discovered several recipes that looked Most Interesting. When I got to the third recipe, I found a link to a discussion about the Bengals’ football game, and since I hadn’t seen the game I considered it my civic duty to catch up. After which I was really going to write the Great and Meaningful Blog.

Except that by then I had forgotten my original topic. So I decided I’d better start searching My Friend the Internet for Inspiration.

Which of course made me think of the book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (it turns out there are tons of extensions on the original including a plush toy) and I remembered that I had stopped part way through a chapter in the book I’m reading (re-reading to be accurate) so I finished the chapter and then I wondered if the author had written anything recently so I looked him up and it turns out that he (Keith Laumer) died in 1993, which would make writing recently unlikely, but I found several titles I haven’t read and requested them from the library which reminded me I have Gone Girl on hold and have to go pick it up.

At which point I remembered that I hadn’t found a topic for the blog, so I decided to get back to work and scan for inspiration.

And you won’t believe what I found!!!

If You Give a Mom the Internet….

Love, Mom

P.S. This is a reminder to focus on studying and not on cat videos.

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