For being angry at people sharing frightening stories on social media

[DiffTiff]

I have a few friends who share frightening stories on Facebook. (With an obvious theme at the moment, but also on other topics from the perils of eating meat to how we should all fear the next big event).
Why do they do this? Whilst I accept that people use social media differently (for me it's about connecting, trying to spread a bit of positivity, keeping up to date with people's babies and pets) I just don't see what they "get" from doing this? Are they happy to have stressed out their friends? Are they some sort of grief addicts? My overall feeling is that I am angry they've made me anxious and spoilt that moment of my day. (Yes I will unfollow).

Maybe they feel they are sharing a warning.

The last year has really highlighted for me what I can and can't handle re. News and information. People sharing information about the government doing a bad job and the consequences of this i find important, there's something I can do with the info, use it to inform futures votes, support politicians who oppose them etc.
Sharing videos of doctors expressing doubts about lockdowns effectiveness or even the potential worse harm its causing... what can I do with that?! I am not qualified to weigh up the data from both sides and make an informed opinion on who is correct, and I couldn't put anything into action if I thought they were right anyway- lockdown is lockdown. So I'd rather trust the majority NHS opinion than throw a spanner in the works with some contradictory outlier opinion i have no way of verifying.

Maybe unfollow frequent news sharers and keep the puppies and baby posters, curate your own wall.

Yeah I suppose it is a warning but so depressing and anxiety inducing. (I still think it's a slightly weird mentality)

Worth unfriending for then maybe they will get the message.

My biggest issue is people sharing awareness stuff about animal abuse. Yes it's a worthy cause but I really can't cope with horrific pictures popping up on my social media in between the cat posts.

YABU, I think. It's theirs to share what they want, and if we weren't allowed to share anything that anyone anywhere would find distressing or anxiety inducing, we'd never be able to share anything.

People use social media to share what's important to them. If what's important to you is to have a positive-only feed, you can try and curate that by following the 'right' people and hiding those who don't help. But it's a reflection of life, and life is sometimes scary or negative - I think you'd be hard pressed to find somewhere online that didn't reflect that in some capacity and tbh I don't think that would be particularly good.

There was an article on my news feed from the Daily Telegraph recently, I didn't read the whole article because it was behind a pay wall, but the writer was talking about the BBC sending reporters into hospital covid wards and the filming of sick patients and desperate, often weeping staff.

The crux of the article was that this, sensationalist (my word) reporting of the 'front line' of the fight again covid was unhelpful and amounted to scaremongering (their word).

I agree. We all know this is an awful situation. Thousands have died. We all know this.

I'm not sure how helpful it is to the morale of a population that is already having to deal with the death of loved ones, job loses, lockdown, an increasing mental illness crisis and all the problems all these thing entail, to have this brought into their home every evening.

There is such a things as too much information.

I think sometimes we just need to filter what we read and watch and learn to know what we can handle so I've started turning off the tv when I know it's going to depress me and there are certain people on my fb page whose posts I will skip over.

Right now I have friends and family on there who I thought had perfectly ordinary views spouting anti mask and anti vax crap and how the covid jab has made someone or other seriously ill.
I have unfollowed. Dont need that crap when my mum had the jab last week (and is fine) and my dad s due his soon.
My dd works in care so I m just hoping she gets hers soon.
That unfollow button s been on fire lately.

@recklessruby

Right now I have friends and family on there who I thought had perfectly ordinary views spouting anti mask and anti vax crap and how the covid jab has made someone or other seriously ill. I have unfollowed. Dont need that crap when my mum had the jab last week (and is fine) and my dad s due his soon. My dd works in care so I m just hoping she gets hers soon. That unfollow button s been on fire lately.

I'm sorry to go OT but I just had to reply. I had my jab booked for Monday (47, and in an at risk group) and was really scarred because of all the scare mongering. However, I did have the jab and apart from just a small sore throat the next day, I've been fine! Just thought I'd pop this in here in case anyone else has read anything and is worried.

@pigsDOfly but the Telegraph has a vested political-bias reason for wanting its readers to stick their fingers in their ears and go LA LA LA LA MUST REOPEN FOR THE ECONOMY LA LA LA.

What pisses me off is the folks going on about "twelve people have come down with post-vaccine reactions! Avoid the vaccine!" without apparently being aware that x million people haven't and tens of thousands now won't catch COVID and have a much worse outlook than the twelve unlucky folks (who were probably actually reacting to albumin or something anyway).

Humans are shit about judging risk, and going on about the one-in-a-million issues just exacerbates the ignorance and causes more deaths.

The Telegraph want you to vote Conservative. They're not at all subtle about this! They don't want us to see anything that makes it obvious just how much this government has fucked this up. Of course they'll claim news and facts are 'scaremongering'. It's a similar tactic to Trump's "fake news" stance on anything that showed him in a bad light.

YAB massively U

If you chose to stick with fairies and rainbows, it's up to you. They don't have. If you find that some subjects spoil your day, get out of social media.

It's on you, not on them.

If you are on a diet and you find the pictures of beautiful cakes triggering, stay away.
If you are jealous of friends being at home/ being at work, stay away

Maybe your friends feel it's important to raise awareness.
Maybe sharing help them to cope, as they feel they are doing something
Maybe they are winding you up.

Most people don't get stressed out or anxious by what they see on social media frankly.

If it is Facebook you can unfollow people without blocking them, and they don’t know.

If someone posts a lot of opinion pieces and news stories as if they are some kind of amateur journalist or press officer for a pressure group I just unfollow them.

I don’t mind a sad or scary story if has actually happened to them but I don’t want to get my national or international news from Facebook.

YABU unless they are encouraging vigilante attacks or something like that.

"Someone tried to grab an eight year old on her way home from school (cos she's the daughter of a key worker and/or isn't in the UK before anyone shouts) so try to make sure your children don't come home alone but stay in groups" is fine. Will put parents on edge, but might make them think twice about how secure their children are.

"Someone tried to grab an eight year old on her way home from school (cos she's the daughter of a key worker and/or isn't in the UK before anyone shouts), I reckon it must be that man who lives at 123 Fake Street because he is a bit odd and lives there alone even though he must be 50 now, he gives me the creeps" is not fine, because it's endangering someone with no actual evidence other than your own imagination.

Whilst I accept that people use social media differently .............I just don't see what they "get" from doing this? Are they happy to have stressed out their friends? Are they some sort of grief addicts? My overall feeling is that I am angry they've made me anxious...........

So, you don't really accept that people use SM differently, do you?!

@HerNameIsIncontinentiaButtocks I'm sure the Telegraph does have that bias but having said that, I think their point is well made (I'm not a Telegraph reader, btw the guardian is my paper of choice.

It's perfectly possible to be fully aware of what is going on in the country by listening to any decent news channel or reading any decent newspaper without having to look at dying people or watch demoralised nurses and doctor break down in tears on tv; not watching it doesn't amount to putting your fingers in your ears and going LA LA LA.

The people who claim the vaccine is causing terrible side effects are pissing me off too and I think, causing untold harm.

I have a couple of relations who have posted that they 'are not going to have that shite in their body' and frequently repost anti covid vaccination rubbish from dodgy sites claiming terrible side effect, none of which they back up with any valid arguments or reasons.

I've had my covid vaccination as I come into the over 70 age group. Apart from feeling tired that evening I had nothing, not even a sore arm, which I usually get with my flu jab.

I know quite a number of people who've have had it now and none of them has had any unpleasant reactions, or any reaction much at all tbh.

@TakeTheCuntOutOfScunthorpe

YABU unless they are encouraging vigilante attacks or something like that.

"Someone tried to grab an eight year old on her way home from school (cos she's the daughter of a key worker and/or isn't in the UK before anyone shouts) so try to make sure your children don't come home alone but stay in groups" is fine. Will put parents on edge, but might make them think twice about how secure their children are.

"Someone tried to grab an eight year old on her way home from school (cos she's the daughter of a key worker and/or isn't in the UK before anyone shouts), I reckon it must be that man who lives at 123 Fake Street because he is a bit odd and lives there alone even though he must be 50 now, he gives me the creeps" is not fine, because it's endangering someone with no actual evidence other than your own imagination.

Yup I've seen someone sharing a picture of some "suspect" like this. Reported it and messaged them that they are a fucking idiot and will get someone killed like that. Apparently "I don't understand because I don't have kids" 🤷🏻 🤦

There was a guy who killed himself because people went after him thinking he is Robert Thompson apparently...

I occasionally post things on Facebook which might fall into your unwelcome category OP, though I'd say less than monthly and it's shock images etc, it's things I think give a good sensible explanation of Covid/vaccine/explanation. I do it because I feel if even just 1 person sees it and changes their behaviour, that's enough for me.
I'm a GP and most days I speak to someone with a cough who hasn't isolated and tested with a cough, there's always an excuse 'it's not Covid because I haven't been out (apart from the shops), or because I know my own body, or because I always get a cough in winter'. I do my best to educate these people when I speak to them as patients, but I cling to the hope that someone random might see my FB posts and rethink their selfish virus-spreading behaviour.

Sorry meant to say, it's NOT shock images, obviously!

I whizz down my fb feed and anything that shares Covid memes, posts asking for large pay rises for NHS workers, rants about mask wearing, either for or against, ridiculous hoaxes about people sharing LSD soaked bits of paper etc get instantly hidden. It’s made my life a lot less anger filled.

I always comment if someone has shared something I don't want to see on my timeline (like animal abuse mainly). They get the chance to not include me next time or be deleted from my friends list.

Also, I have a friend working for the ambulance service as a call handler at the moment. She keeps on sharing the "don't call 999 if 111 will do" bits on Facebook. I haven't so far but really feel like saying to her "Mary, are you friends with any fuckwits who don't know the difference between 111 and 999? If you are why don't you ditch them and then you'll stop feeling the need to share these patronising messages" ... but I haven't so far .

Ah, doomscrolling. Some people seem to love it.
I just scroll on by, tbh. I get far more annoyed by self-piteous vaguebooking.

I don't think I mean timeline, I think I mean news feed. Don't do a great deal on FB.

I always comment if someone has shared something I don't want to see on my timeline (like animal abuse mainly). They get the chance to not include me next time or be deleted from my friends list.

Do you mean they should always think whether you wnat to see it and then change visibility of the post? Couldn't be arsed with that tbh

Do you mean they should always think whether you wnat to see it and then change visibility of the post? Couldn't be arsed with that tbh

agreed

I couldn't care less if I am on someone's friends list or not.

I don't censor myself when I actually speak with friends, so I am not going to start when I post things on social media.

Well, they're still here, I assume. So you could see it as a positive, in terms of managing to get through it. I think that's why some people like scary stories as it shows it is possible to survive all sorts.