5 Things You Should Stop Doing On Social Media

We all have this love/hate relationship with social media. We love connecting with others and finding awesome cat videos to entertain us, but in the same breath spend way too much time watching said cat videos and ~~stalking~~ following our friends.

We post pictures of our lunches, selfies with our friends, but there are some things you should stop doing on social media. Things that could be detrimental to your safety and cause issues in real life.

1 – Holiday Updates With Your Location

I’m not the kind of person that freaks out about sharing a few holiday snaps online and as much as I take online security seriously, it doesn’t keep me up at night. But… when I see people posting pics of themselves on holiday, with a location tag and even worse – saying there’s no one at their house… it’s like all kinds of alarm bells are ringing!!

The use of Facebook for stalking and location detection is real. You might even be giving away your location without realising (da, da, dummmm….). Check your phone, turn off geotagging and don’t ‘check in’ to places when you’re out of the country if you can help it.

Better still, if you want to brag about your holiday (which, let’s face it, we all do) be sure to mention something about your housesitter, home security system, ginormous dog or body guard protecting your house back home.

2 – Taking Your Relationship Arguments Online

We all have that one friend that is an oversharer. And if you can’t think of that one friend, then maybe it’s you! I mean, I love a good overshare as much as the next person and I probably share more than the average Joe, but there are people who share way too much of their personal lives and it’s all kinds of wrong.

Sure, taking to Facebook to settle a disagreement about whether or not there should be pineapple on pizza (there should by the way) is fairly harmless, getting on and ranting about how your husband is late home from work again, doesn’t clean up after himself and is demanding dinner is probably not the most productive use of social media.

If you’re having issues like this, find the right people to help you. Your Facebook friends are not the right people.

As much as I love celebrating being real on social media, there is a line between real and airing your dirty laundry.

3 – Publishing Anything About Your Job or Your Boss/Co-Workers

I’m pretty sensitive to this issue, and you’d think most people would be. It’s rare for me to post anything related to my job – as a Paramedic, I have a responsibility to keep my patient’s details private. I might post something generic every now and then, after all I’m pretty darn proud of my job. But you won’t find me telling the world about what job I went on that day or what patients I saw.

But some people think it’s okay. Some people forget that once it’s online, people have access to it. Sure, your profile might be private and only your friends have access but screenshots can be taken from people on your friends list and used against you. It happens. For real.

And while you’re at it, be sure not to bad mouth the company you work for, your boss or your colleagues. There is nothing to be gained from doing this. If you feel the need to post something just stop for a few seconds and ask yourself why. Why do you feel the need to tell the world your boss is a douche? Chances are, if they are a douche, most people will know it anyway. Keep it offline.

4 – Inviting People To Your ‘Unique Opportunity’ To Earn Eleventy Million Dollars From Home

Sure, if I want to buy eyeliner or shakes or tights or whatever you’re selling, I’ll come to you. Because I know you sell them. How do I know? Because you’ve tagged me in a bajillion photos and whenever we catch up that’s pretty much all you talk about. Actually, I cancelled our last coffee date because I didn’t want to hear about it.

I’m all for supporting women in business, but don’t freaking push it on me. If my friend opened a cafe, I’d go there and drink coffee and support her. But I’d stop being around her if she kept trying to sell me a franchise opportunity every single time I saw her.

Running your own business is hard work, regardless of whether you created the business yourself or if you’re working for a Multi-Level Marketing company (MLM). I love that you’re doing something for yourself, that is seriously awesome. We need to do more of that. But pushing your products onto people is not going to grow your business and it’s going to make you lose friends. Not worth it.

5 – Being a Negative Nellie, Sanctimommy or Generally Putting Other People Down

You’re allowed to disagree with me, that’s totally okay. We’d live in a pretty boring world if everyone agreed and had the same opinions on things. But, don’t confuse this with me actually giving a rats razoodle about what you think of my dinner choices or parenting choices.

You only feed your kids organic, vegan, no GMO, MSG, additives foods and cook a different meal for the 5 kids you homeschool? That’s freaking awesome – seriously. I wish I had that level of patience and stamina. You are a legend. And I truly mean this.

But my kid ate his veggies today that came from the supermarket and were probably dropped on the floor at one stage. I’m still counting that as a win.

It’s also incredibly annoying and downright rude when people are negative and put others down all the dang time. Didn’t your parents teach you about manners? The whole ‘if you don’t have something nice to say then don’t say anything at all’. We have this amazing ability on social media to not only keep scrolling, but we can also hide posts and unfollow people. Use these functions.

Again, it’s okay for you to disagree, and there are some discussions on Facebook where two sides of an argument are presented in a reasonable and mature way (rare, but it happens). But when you see people arguing, and really becoming horrible and nasty, you have to ask yourself if it’s really worth it.

Sing with me now… “Let it go, let it goooooo…..”

You have to remember, everything you put online stays there. It can be found in some way, shape or form and it can bite you in the backside in years to come. So be nice, play it safe and remember to connect with people in the real world too.