311/365 Day 8 The Seven Deadly Sins of Social Media

Boy One and the weird thing he brought home from school

Lust – On Facebook when you share gratuitous pictures of people who make you feel horny, when you do that you’ve committed the sin of lust. This is especially so if when you have ‘liked’ the polish chested young man you have made a nonsense of your professed feminism. That’s not to say it’s not possible to feel good and lusty from time to time, but objectification isn’t nice. Equally if you tweet “phwarr” about Dermot’s trouser bulge during X Factor that’s pretty sinful too (the tweeting not the bulge). 

Gluttony An instragram of your dinner heaped up so high you can’t see the plate… that’s gluttony. Mountains of chips, stacks of steak, cliff-faces of cake and heaps of Haribos. If you’re scoffing remarkable quantities, that’s gluttony. 

Greed An inspection of a Facebook timeline might reveal greed. Are there fancypants handbag shops, shoe stores and gadget purveyors showing up because you’ve entered a competition or sycophantically clicked ont heir stuff in the hope of getting some… some way you haven’t figured out yet? That’s greedy. Stalking the interweb for competitions, giveaways and other sources of free loot is pretty greedy too. Also bloggers whose main aim is to get things for nothing, that’s greedy too. (Yes, yes, I know, but I turn down more than I accept.)

Sloth Some of you might also be old enough to remember when everyone first got remote controls for their tellies. There were hilarious jokes about how we’d all lose the use of our legs and become reliant on sofas to keep us off the floor. Yes. Well that came to pass and now we have the internet. You never need to actually talk to anyone, visit a shop, write a letter with an actual pen, look something up in a real book or even think very much. There’s an app for that. It’s not energy efficient or ergonomically elegant, it’s bone idle and slothful. 

Wrath Here’s social media’s pet sin. What happens when you’re pissed off with someone. You don’t even phone your mum or tell a pal, you just go online and vaguebook the hell out of them. “Some people are really stupid and smelly,” says the Facebook status. Or: “I’m really upset by the lies people tell.” See, it’s rubbish. It doesn’t make you feel better and the object of your fury is probably on Pinterest instead. 
Also if your day goes mildly awry, the first course of action isn’t to have a cup of tee while you consider matters, it’s to tweet. “@mobileprovider, you’re crap, you are.” or “@postiesUK I was expecting a package today, but it’s not here. Huh, What’re you going to do about it? :-(“
Equally ill-considered and unfair. A little venting sure, but you need to make sure that the object of your cross-tweet is actually the right one, and, maybe, be clear about what you want them to do. Far better to put the kettle on and have a biscuit, you’ll have forgotten all about it soon enough. 

Envy When your pal gets a new job, your cousin posts photos of their mansion or someone you’ve never even met tells you how lovely their holiday resort is, how do you react? If it’s jealous and snippy – even if you only manage a tight-lipped ‘like’ – then the sin of envy is upon you. Once upon a time, news of other people’s achievements arrived watered down by hearsay. Only now, you get it in all its instant mega-pixel glory and it doesn’t feel nice at all. 

Pride So, you’ve got a new dress, pay rise, shiny car, holiday someone exotic or your unnaturally advanced child has achieved a day of continence. What do you do? You tell the social media world – of course you do. “Look at me, look at me, how marvellous I am.” This is bragging and no one likes it at all, so stop. 

This was the post I was going to write yesterday in response to Vonnie’s prompt: Social media allows you to mask parts of your personality and show others. What percentage of yourself do you think you reveal to people online? 

Only I didn’t get round to it yesterday, what with going to the theatre to see the Lion King before scoffing my face full of lovely grub at Pomegranate in Edinburgh. You should have seen grown-up Simba’s abs. Though I was jealous that the Boys and the Panther got to meet Santa at the St Enoch’s Centre Christmas Launch and angry that the lady at the station got the wrong information about the train ticket nearly making me miss the 5pm, but then I couldn’t be bothered to write a post about that. 

See what I did there?