WHY I’M GOING BACK TO BLOGGING

I seem to have a lot of controversial stuff to say and since I got lazy and stopped blogging the only platform I've had to express my thoughts is Facebook. I have recently realised that it is not often a good idea to log in to Facebook, post something controversial, and leave it up to [mis]interpretation. Here’s a couple reasons why:

TONE (or lack thereof). Facebook, or any other online or written forum or form of social network, fails to accurately portray tone. Actually, it fails to portray tone at all. The problem with this is that not everyone on my Facebook friend list knows me very well. Or at least they don’t know my heart or intention behind whatever it is that I post. In addition to this they don’t all share my worldview. Due to these two major points any reader (other than the one who knows me well or shares my worldview) is going to read my post through a lens of assumptions and in a tone that he or she thinks that I may have said it in, resulting in misinterpretation of what I have posted and the formulation of a rebuttal based on the misinterpretation.

CLARITY. On social media platforms where posts have to be short and concise it is difficult to be clear or explanatory in your discourse. This is where blog platforms have an advantage. I can spend a whole paragraph on explaining my intentions behind my statement and making sure that my intended tone is portrayed accurately. I can explain, define and reference without the fear of my post extending into the ‘see more’ zone.

SOCIAL MEDIA BOLDNESS. People (generalising for a second) are a lot bolder online than they are in real life. This means that I'm going to get a lot of responses from people who really wouldn't engage with the topic if faced with it in a real life, offline situation. These commentators have also, on occasion, proven to be people who for reasons other than mere disagreement or willingness to engage have taken part in discussions and thus been invaluable and time-wasting.

AUDIENCE APPROPRIATENESS. Not the kind of appropriateness relating to profanity or nudity or such. The issue here revolves around my target audience. This isn't as much of a problem when I am addressing a general issue as opposed to when I choose to address an issue or discuss a topic that is exclusively Christian. By exclusively Christian I mean an issue that may be heavily misinterpreted or possibly even impossible to understand if you are not a Christian. For example: “Should Christians celebrate Jewish festivals or not”. This is a topic that a person who is not a Christian would not be bothered to get involved in as it would not be applicable to his or her life. On the other hand, everything I post, whether directed at Christians or nay, stems from a Christian perspective and worldview and will therefore automatically warrant a fair amount of response, depending of course on the controversy levels of the post.

There are probably more good reasons that I am not able to think of right now but these are my main ones. So for these reasons I am going to start to blog again. This way, as a Facebooker, you are not forced to read all the rubbish that I post - unless you really want to. 

Please do though.