*Photo Source: Pinterest.

I remember when my friend who is ten years older than me and a complete technophobe first joined Facebook, she was hooked. Now living in Essex having grown up in London she had long lost touch with people she had grown up with and gone to school with and now after over a decade (at the time, this was pushing eight years ago) was reconnecting with old faces and finding out where past friends had ended up since leaving education. That is what Facebook can be about, it has been the same for my mother in law too who has reconnected with people she probably never thought she would see or speak to again. For me though, I feel as though I left school, grew up a bit (but not much) then propelled myself into the land of social media where everyone I had said sniffly and teary goodbyes to not five years previously were now residing.

Don't get me wrong, I thought it was great! I do even more so at 30 because having not been on Facebook for a couple of years now I find I don't hear about old school friends so much now because most of them don't use twitter.

The problem for my generation and any after me is we don't really know any different now. Our adult lives have been lived out on social media and for people younger than me, their teen lives too. Babies today are born with phones in their hand and an email address. Because of that I can't help but think that every day etiquette and basic good manners have gone out of the window - online I mean. People talk about other people behind their back but on social media for the whole world - and probably that person - to see. People are nasty about each other and some have full blown slanging matches that clog up peoples timelines.

I have spoken before about how I can't stand people living out every aspect of their lives on social media, showing off and trying to convince their world of online friends they are having a good time. I am not talking about that again today, I want to talk about the nastiness.

Why don't people treat other people with a bit of respect any more? Why do they not approach someone they have an issue with  - especially when they are meant to be good friends with them  -and say that they have either heard something which has upset them or just something in general has upset them and give that person the opportunity to defend or explain themselves. ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE MEANT TO BE GOOD FRIENDS. It beggars belief. That logical part of a persons mind that wants to give someone the benefit of the doubt or sort things out seems to have fizzled away. People are always too eager to put everything online good or bad, almost like an obsession or a desperate attempt to gain sympathy or attention or admiration.

For me though, a friend who would rather talk about me online and be nasty rather than come and speak to me is no friend of mine.

END OF.