Social Media and Conference

document · Post by **document** » Thu Mar 30, 2017 5:31 am

I know several of my ex-Mormon friends have purged their social media accounts of links with their believing LDS friends. I don't blame them.

I generally avoid Facebook this weekend because of all the gushing that occurs over general conference. There are the invitations up inviting people to "listen to a prophet's voice" and saying how much this is their favorite weekend (knowing they will all be asleep on Sunday afternoon). During conference, I get constant updates from friends and family who discuss conference openly on social media.

This isn't missionary work, it is annoying.

Brent · Post by **Brent** » Thu Mar 30, 2017 6:54 am

The easy answer is "unfollow".

document · Post by **document** » Thu Mar 30, 2017 2:00 pm

Unfortunately, "unfollow" means less baby pictures of people I care about.

LostMormon · Post by **LostMormon** » Thu Mar 30, 2017 2:48 pm

I generally avoid Facebook this weekend because of all the gushing that occurs over general conference. There are the invitations up inviting people to "listen to a prophet's voice" and saying how much this is their favorite weekend (knowing they will all be asleep on Sunday afternoon).

exactly! Why do you think it's everybody's favorite weekend? Get TBM's alone, and they will admit it's because they don't have to go to 3 hours of church, they would much rather pretend to listen to 10 hours of conference (I can hear it just fine out here mowing the lawn, hun)

RubinHighlander · Post by **RubinHighlander** » Thu Mar 30, 2017 3:44 pm

This is one of the reason I left FB about five years ago. I was a stake clerk and the SP was telling us all we needed to be putting our inspirational crap and testimonies on our social media pages. I soon noticed them adding FB pages and friending me. My account was primarily photography, but with all the crap people were posting on politics and religion I'd had enough. I really hated those accounts where people can't even post one freaking thought of their own, they just regurgitate memes of cheesy inspirational quotes with pictures of puppies, kitties, temples, GAs, etc. Even worse are the people posting pictures of their food. Sorry, but I don't give a F***. I'd had enough.

As an experiment, I actually went through the trouble of deleting every single picture and post I made on the account. I unfriended and removed every contact, killed all chat logs, then even changed my contact info to false information and let it sit a couple of weeks then finally totally killed the account and all association with FB. It took me about three weeks, 15-30 minutes per day. They don't make it easy, but I was not leaving them any of my data. Not to say they didn't have it backed up on a server somewhere, but I felt pretty good about it. I never get any spam from FB and I've never missed it.

It was probably just as difficult to uncouple all the tendrils of FB from my digital life as it was to uncouple from the LDS church.

Anon70 · Post by **Anon70** » Fri Mar 31, 2017 1:15 am

I remember, before faith crisis, feeling embarrassed by all the gushing on FB by TBM friends and family.

After faith crisis, they made me laugh. Like "if they only knew!"

Ponderize was the last straw for me. I now avoid FB for a while during and after GC.

Corsair · Post by **Corsair** » Fri Mar 31, 2017 10:18 am

Anon70 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 31, 2017 1:15 am I now avoid FB for a while during and after GC.

Facebook leading up to General Conference
Facebook leading up a major election

Which do you think is worse? My wife certainly unfollowed many people in September from both major parties.

Anon70 · Post by **Anon70** » Fri Mar 31, 2017 10:22 pm

Corsair wrote: ↑Fri Mar 31, 2017 10:18 am
Anon70 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 31, 2017 1:15 am I now avoid FB for a while during and after GC.

Facebook leading up to General Conference

Facebook leading up a major election

Which do you think is worse? My wife certainly unfollowed many people in September from both major parties.

Oy. That's a hard question! I have never been on the same page politically as my family so I avoid everyone during an election season!

Just This Guy · Post by **Just This Guy** » Sat Apr 01, 2017 2:59 am

Brent wrote: ↑Thu Mar 30, 2017 6:54 am The easy answer is "unfollow".

For a while you could block content form specific sources. So you could stay friends with someone, but anytime the would share something from say LDSLiving, it would not let that come through on your page. Unfortunately, it looks like they made some changes lately and it is harder to do this. So stuff that I had blocked is showing up again for me and now I can't figure out how to get rid of it.

Knowing Facebook, i could see them selling this service to companies.

Brent · Post by **Brent** » Sat Apr 01, 2017 4:45 pm

I just unfollow, wait for the pooh storm be over, then start following again.

Give It Time · Post by **Give It Time** » Sat Apr 01, 2017 8:58 pm

You can put them on your acquaintance list. Some, I unfollow, as well, but some of their stuff still comes through to the acquaintance feed. When I check the acquaintance feed, I see how they're doing. See if their posts are overly political, religious or misogynistic. If it's just family posts, I move them back to my regular friends list.

Lithium Sunset · Post by **Lithium Sunset** » Sat Apr 01, 2017 9:28 pm

Just This Guy wrote: ↑Sat Apr 01, 2017 2:59 am For a while you could block content form specific sources. So you could stay friends with someone, but anytime the would share something from say LDSLiving, it would not let that come through on your page. Unfortunately, it looks like they made some changes lately and it is harder to do this. So stuff that I had blocked is showing up again for me and now I can't figure out how to get rid of it.
Knowing Facebook, i could see them selling this service to companies.

This is exactly what I have been doing for a while now. It seems to still be working for me. I did have something pop up today which left me annoyed (and running to this site) but it was just my cousin worshiping conference. My Uncle and my cousin have huge leadership worshiping syndrome.
I feel bad that I have such an unpleasant reaction to it now. It's just so close minded and foolish. I cannot seem to enjoy conversations with my other aunt anymore either. Her mental struggle to believe, mixed with her extreme stubbornness is too much to bear. Not to mention she feels like I am missing out or my life trials are because I don't believe.
And can I just continue to vent by saying that I hate it when my family says they are blessed by God when things turn out okay. What about the people who have bad things happen? I know you guys know what I mean....
I'm just glad most of it is blocked on facebook (and that I don't live near family....that's a sad thought)

TheRunningmom · Post by **TheRunningmom** » Sun Apr 02, 2017 1:20 pm

I think I must have blocked enough because I'm not getting nearly as many gushing conference posts in my feed this time around. And no FB events leading up to it this time as far as I have seen.

So far all I've seen is complaints about the dissenting votes (and a link to the LDS Living article about it), a couple comments about individual talks and some comments about wearing rival Utah school t-shirts while watching.

One funny thing that my 16 year old son told me...he saw that GC was trending on Facebook and clicked on the livestream link, screenshot it and sent it to his TBM friend. Friend replied and said, "Even I don't watch that, it's boring!"

NOM

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