by Michael Plante

After 13 years I closed my social media account on Facebook and Twitter (now X), permanently. The decision to do so came with much deliberation. Thirteen years of page development and postings, pictures and communications was weighed against the onslaught of negativity that had developed on social media. It is a digital lifestyle that has ups and downs, just like real life. Interactions with others, a jail and in extreme cases, execution (deletion of an account for inappropriate actions). It is a world unto itself.

Thirteen years ago Facebook was a fun and informative; I got into playing Mafia Wars which was amusing, especially when family and friends were playing. After a few years of playing I found myself immersed in the game. I was letting it chew up a lot of time where I could be writing, so I deleted my Mafia Wars account along with the 495 friends that I had accumulated in the process. I kept a few friends because I enjoyed our interactions throughout that time. Along with the games Facebook offered were social pages devoted to pass on community information regarding events and concerns. Local Police had their pages, Municipalities and governments even had their own page to inform the public regarding up-coming events or a “call out” to the public for assistance. All solid and reliable accounts.

I cannot recall the exact time social media started to take a turn for the worse. I believe it was just those little un-expecting posts that started to seep into the feed that was the catalyst of what people now see. Posts intended to mis-inform people for entertainment purposes, or to see how the public would respond, or it could have been ignorance of fact that was posted into a newsfeed unintentionally. Over time, what it developed into was individuals deliberately mis-informing the public for sensationalism or propaganda to create anarchy of state. I watched as friends would engage in these posts and shoot digital bullets at each other’s comments or responses. Even I would get swept up in a moral debate regarding some of these postings. The only one laughing was the individual that watched their work create such a debacle of human interaction.

I think of social media as a digital wild west of America. Some people shooting their mouths off, some dancing around the issues, some out to steal from your pocketbook, some (like myself) pimping out their wears for fame and fortune. There are the churchgoers, and do-gooders that offer their insight and remedies through their religion or practices (of course, you must join to receive in most cases), and sheriff Zuckerberg keeping watch over everybody as he puts up advertisement posters on the side of the town’s wall.

Towards to end of my social interactions on Facebook I found myself scrolling for two things, acts of human kindness, and controversial postings in which I could engage. The acts of kindness, the Dodo Page as an example, spends time and effort in the recovery of abused animals or injured animals. Their videos are heartwarming yet how most of these abused animals got there is concerning. To see a dog or a cat that has no faith in humans become rehabilitated and to find the love in their hearts reignited because of human intervention is inspiring and up-lifting. Yet one cannot ignore the fact that it was a human that put the animal in that condition to begin with. Compassion and anger tend to go hand in hand.

I was on Facebook for the first Trump era which lasted from 2016 until 2021. It was a social media fiasco and open season for character assassination on all fronts. Instead of using live rounds an ammunition like in Dallas digital bullet spewed across social media from around the world. Such hateful words and attitudes erupted between countrymen, people beating each other on the streets just because of political indifferences is cause for alarm in any county, let alone the U.S.A. All of it playing out in the world of social media.

Things really started to go ballistic worldwide when covid-19 arrived. A divide between beliefs separated “Us” from “Them”. As covid-19 tore through hospitals and nursing homes killing seniors and those with on-going health concerns people took to social media to voice their concerns regarding governmental interjection (or lack there of). The world closed down as millions of those infected died. Horror stories from overwhelmed services emerged from cities around the world. Families waiting days for someone to come and remove a deceased loved one who died in their bed. Images of mass graves from South America popped up. When a vaccine was developed some governments made it mandatory for healthcare workers to receive or they could not go back to work. In Canada, a transport operator could not cross the boarder into the U.S.A. without a vaccine injection or couldn’t come into Canada without proof of vaccine. The “pro” and “anti-pro” vaccine believers weighed battle against each other regarding their rights, each claiming the other had bought into the misinformation being supplied by government, scientists, and the healthcare community. As this all played out people were dying. Our priorities were being put to the test. As individuals we can only answer the question of success or failure in silence.

I spent thirteen years developing The Poet’s House (formally known as The Struggles of A Poet Not Yet Dead) on Facebook. Hundreds of postings, images and links to other webpages were posted. My work was sometimes dark, sometimes enlightening, or inspiring, and hopefully informative. It took some deliberation before I killed it all. With the hours a day on social media, with the dis-heartening view of human interaction becoming too much to withstand I decided to move on to something else. I felt infected by so much negativity that it became a daily struggle to remain positive. The good could not outweigh the bad anymore.

My belief is that all writers should have their work made available for the public to read at no cost. I continuously post pieces I have written somewhere on the internet. Lately I created this page to do just that. This is not to say I do not self-publish books or would say no to a publication house making an offer. To be able to sustain oneself as a writer would be great and I think its a goal for most writers; although to have your work studied at post secondary institutions is the feather in the writer’s cap.

If you are a reader, I hope you get a chance to enjoy the pieces I have written and posted to The Poet’s House. Sometimes I get it right, sometimes I do not, yet I am not afraid to put it out there for the sake of inspiration or enlightenment; for that is something all humans seek at one time or another.