Readers respond: The most-obnoxious social media habits

The other day, I ranted about people oversharing on social media. I said it’s more important to live in the moment and enjoy what’s around you rather than living through a screen. As expected, many people took offence because I mocked their attention-seeking habits. Oh well.

There were plenty of people who agreed with me. In fact, they shared their observations (pet peeves?) about social platforms.

“I don’t get people who post messages to their young kids who aren’t even on social media,” one reader said. “It’s written to the child (I’m so proud of you, etc. etc.) but for adults to read. It’s clearly for attention and a roundabout way of showing they’re a proud parent but it’s weird.”

She concluded, “I wonder how many parents actually say those loving words to the child’s face. The exact words. Are they that articulate when speaking to the son/daughter as they are to their followers? Maybe the parents should focus on boosting up their kid and not putting out parental press releases to get digital applause.” (I laughed at “parental press releases.”)

Another scenario is people announcing that they’re taking a break from social media because it’s too overwhelming for their mental well being. There’s a common response to this that I wasn’t aware of.

On Twitter/X, people are often met with the reply (usually in graphic/meme form), “This isn’t the airport. There’s no need to announce your departure.” This is typically when people say they’re quitting the platform either in protest of Elon Musk or a world event. The response? Mockery.

When the departure, er, exit is meant to be temporary, people generally post a rambling explanation about the forthcoming absence as they feel widespread panic will set in if time goes by without a public documentation of their day-to-day.

“It says something about society (or someone’s ego) if they think people will jump to the conclusion that something is wrong because they don’t check in about their life for a few days,” said Dawn in an email. “I assume it means the person is out living life and (it’s) not something to panic about.”

Another observation was about celebrity deaths and how people post as though they’re deeply saddened by the loss.

“People write like they were best friends with Matthew Perry meanwhile they’d never met the guy and hadn’t thought about him in 20 years,” said Randal. “I remember when Paul Walker died and all I saw was posts about how sad random people were but they just knew the dude from one movie. I (had) never even heard of him until I saw the eulogies every random person was writing. LOL.”

Finally, Charlene worried that people are less resourceful (read: lazy) when it comes to seeking answers from their social media page.

“I constantly see one woman asking questions like, “Does anybody know what time Walmart is open until on (insert holiday here)?” she said. “The fact that her first thought was to go to Facebook and put it out there and wait for answers rather than just Googling or calling the store herself was astonishing to me.”

I’m glad to know there are other people who find phones and social media just as obnoxious as I do.