snarknado

Last week I posted a picture that launched an F-categorySnarknado. I shared the life-altering tale of how my father sequestered all the televisions in our house during my teen years. His reasoning was that if we had time to sit on our butts and veg out, we had time to go out in the yard and work, play sports, do chores, or his all-time favorite, read! When I posted this picture I got quite a few favorable comments saying that yes, they had cut the cord and yes, TV had a lot of crap on it. Others said that there were many good programs but you did need to monitor what you ingested. But there was one person who took great offense at the concept of an adult sanctioning the use of a gadget by their child. According to this individual, technology, computers in particular, had actually saved the world and we all lived an ignorant existence before their advent. On social media it ain’t so much what you say, it’s the way that you say it. Some can’t express a dissenting opinion without resorting to nastiness or condescension. This was especially true of this commentator’s posts. Now I’m the kind of girl who likes to put the social in social media. The best way to handle uncivil discourse is to put it on mute. Not happy to be deterred, the individual proceeded to email me the F-bomb and yes, it has an email and a name. The advent of non-personal communication has empowered technologically-savvy yet socially-obtuse people. Couple that with zero ramifications for cyberspace wretch, and you’ve got the perfect shite storm. And no, the fact that our online activities leave a trail and last forever does not serve as a deterrent. Computers don’t autocorrect for manners. Decorum, civility, and tact are learned from human interaction. If the Dark Ages were a time in history marked by cultural decline and intellectual darkness, we should call our modern-day era The Snark Ages, a time when people feel free to broadcast their inner primordial chump. Winston Churchill said, “A fanatic is one who won’t change his mind, and can’t change the subject.”  And today, technology breeds them faster than Moore’s Law.