The news of today reported by the journalists of tomorrow

The Beacon

The news of today reported by the journalists of tomorrow

The Beacon

The news of today reported by the journalists of tomorrow

The Beacon

The 101 Cheat Sheet: Where to browse

This little sheet is a little like the 10 commandments of social networking, sure it’s been done before, that Moses guy put down some ground rules but he didn’t really mention what to do when a boss starts sending game requests or how many selfies are to many selfies. That’s what this is here for:

Thou shalt not send game requests: Personally and the rest of humanity can attest to the fact that as a whole no one wants to give you a ticket to feed that candy crush habit. No one wants to fertilize crops on Farmville, if anyone even still plays Farmville in 2014 and no one certainly wants to come play a sketchy facebook casino, ask yourself if no one wants to do this, why am I?

Limit thine self to two Facebook statuses a day, maximum: No one cares if someone just cured the common cold today anyone, you frittered away the status limit on a picture of a dog with pants on and complained about traffic on 81. No matter what gets said after that is far too excessive.

Thou shall not conduct surveys: Everyone on your friend list is NOT waiting to tell you what to do about any life choice, let alone qualified to dictate this type of thing. There are much less public ways to decide, “Hey I need to form an opinion on something but don’t want to read anything from a qualified writer and/or news source, let me see what my friend’s think about Benghazi.”

Thou shall not link accounts: Sure this seems like great idea, more followers, more friends, more connections, more double-taps, but in the end it just sucks because the only thing worse than crappy Instagram photos, is seeing them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and burned in the back of my mind when I’m trying to sleep at night. It was great that you had pudding with sprinkles but did the whole world need to know?

Thou shall not become DJ Facebook: While not the most terrible of social media sins, it can get annoying, when someone goes off blows their 2-a-day up to a seven-in-a-row of songs by Breaking Benjamin, Three Doors Down and Hinder. That all can wait man-stuck-in-2005, that all can wait.

Thou shalt not blame the media: These are the absolute worst types of complaints, “It’s all because of the coverage,” “Look at how stupid Skip Bayless is,” “I can’t believe they call that fair and unbiased reporting,” in a world where serenity is just a click away, there is no need to spread stupidity about an outlet that isn’t pandering to your ideas, because they aren’t pandering to your ideas.

Don’t be annoying: This could easily be the first, last, middle, penultimate, and only commandment, but it wouldn’t be much of an article if that happened. So just think like Socrates in PHL 101, social networking is a type of vice and virtue balance. So if 20 selfies a day seems like a good plan, it’s probably not.