To Unfriend or Not Unfriend: That is The Question

Well, let me just start by stating the obvious: 2020 has been one hell of a year. Between impeachment proceedings, an ongoing pandemic, and advocacy for dismantling systemic racism; the year has been full of intense trials.

There are several topics within each of these momentous events, and Dissident Daughters has written a couple of posts about them. Additionally, there are numerous other thoughtful individuals that have written, stated, filmed, protested, and discussed these ongoing issues. Today, however, I want to write about our social media engagement regarding challenging events.

First, let me be clear that these issues are literally life and death issues. They are of utmost importance because of the profound implications they have on people’s lives. I do not underestimate their significance, prevalence, or proliferation.

Nevertheless, what I DO have mixed feelings about is how we engage with them on social media. I have numerous posts I would like to write regarding our social media engagement with intense topics, but today, I want to discuss the following subject:

Unfriending someone who does not agree with us.

In the last couple of months, I have seen several people vocalize their “unfriending” of people on social media. For example, I saw a couple of my friends profess this dissolution on a contentious post about Iowa reopening from the pandemic. Another time, I saw someone post a Facebook status and declared that if someone did not agree, they could go ahead and unfriend them. Zero effs- either you are on my train, or unfriend me and get the rock off. 

On the one hand, I understand this need to “unfriend.” Sometimes we need to set boundaries for our own mental health, and if seeing someone’s views is detrimental to our well-being, we may need to unfriend them. Moreover, I completely understand that these are “life and death” issues on multiple levels. So, to see someone disagree with us feels like a slap in the face to what we view as foundational, life-giving truths.  We unfriend them not only because of our mental health, but because staying friends with them seems as though we are endorsing their profoundly hurtful views.

I don’t unfriend many people, but I definitely have selectively unfriended people before. One of them happened just a couple of months ago for a very painful reason. I won’t go into the details, but let’s just say that I needed to unfriend this person for all of the reasons enumerated above and then some. I’ve experienced the need- and bittersweet relief- of unfriending someone on social media.

However….(and there is always a however!), unfriending someone simply doesn’t always sit well with me. Here’s why:

Let’s say that hypothetically, your viewpoint is the correct one in terms of it being more informed and ethical. I’m not going to go into a philosophical debate about what constitutes truth here. Regardless, let’s just say that hypothetically, you ARE more correct with your viewpoint than this other person on social media. As much as one person can be correct with all of life’s complexity, you are the winner compared to this other individual.

…Does that necessarily mean you should unfriend the person? If they disagree with your statuses, memes, and truths? Well, even if you are the one with the more “correct,” viewpoint, I STILL think it’s important to hear other people. No, I don’t think we should privilege these voices (we definitely need to do better at privileging the voices of marginalized groups), but I think we should still hear other people, particularly the ones that have made their way onto our social media friend list. I think we should hear them because a) they are still another human being that deserves the dignity of being acknowledged as such; and b) the more we hear other voices, the more we understand WHY people have the viewpoints they do. For example, I sure as hell don’t agree with people that espouse racist viewpoints, but if we want to address racism, we need to understand what those views are and why they continue to be promulgated. Finally- and I know this final reason is a bit idealistic, but I hold onto it nonetheless- I still believe there is the possibility that we can be somewhat changed by each other’s views (if it happens in the right circumstances. News flash: posting memes doesn’t change jack squat). I simply don’t think that any of us possess ALL of the truth, and we learn a little bit more about the world by hearing each other’s experience.

Let me give an example. As many of you know, my full-time career is with hospice as a grief counselor. I was visiting with a woman recently who lost her spouse in May. And talking with her was definitely a challenge because she was very angry about the protests that occurred after George Floyd’s death. It was an incredibly difficult situation because I had to walk the line of 1) not endorsing or promoting racist statements; 2) also needing to hear her story and her pain.  

The reason the woman was so hurt and angry was because of the extreme number of people that congregated together to protest George Floyd’s death and systemic racism. She was in tears because they were able to be together in mass numbers, whereas when her husband died, she was only allowed to have 9 other people present to witness his life.

I felt tears start to gather in my own eyes as she described the lack of honoring her husband’s legacy, and the crippling loneliness that ensued due to contact restrictions from the pandemic. “Why, Anne, couldn’t I also have people present to honor my husband? That seems only fair to me. They are able to get together, so I should be able to have people together. Now I’m stuck here, all alone, just waiting for myself to die.” She was shaking as she described how unfair it was that suddenly mass gatherings were okay for that cause, but for her husband, she could only have a few other people around to celebrate his 80 years and their 50+ years of marriage.  

What on earth do we do with this? I wholeheartedly support the protests, and systemic racism is a FACT in this country. And yet, this woman’s pain, loneliness, and desire to be heard is also incredibly real. I did the best I could. I validated her feelings of pain and loneliness, as well as how incredibly unfair it was that she was not able to be surrounded with support. Additionally, I did state that the protests were legitimate and needed to occur as a means of deconstructing systemic power imbalances. I tried to uphold BOTH truths at once, and I did not pit or compare them to one another. I did also mention that in addition to protesters wearing masks and gathering outside, I thought it followed that a similar model could- and should- be replicated with graveside services.

Did I handle this perfectly? Probably not. This stuff is complex. I’m sure I effed up somewhere. Did I do my best? Yes, I did. I did my best to honor my ethics surrounding oppression, AND I did my best to honor my ethics of acknowledging the person before me as a human being made in the image of God. It was a difficult line to walk.

But I am SO grateful for experiences like this one because they force me to continue to expand my own worldview. Did I change my views on the protests/racism? No, I did not. But I DID hear another person’s perspective and the pain they felt in what they perceived as a double standard. And she DID have some points to consider. Again, let me be clear- I firmly stand behind the protests. But what criteria am I (and others) using to legitimize mass gatherings? Advocating for the deconstruction of systemic racism is incredibly time sensitive because of all of the deaths caused through unequal access to health care, police force brutality, etc. They definitely needed to happen. But…is grieving the death of a loved one also time sensitive? Is gathering with loved ones after devastating loss also a necessary and life-giving need? I would say yes. Both are necessary, but for very different reasons.

I was changed by my encounter with this woman, and I hope she was changed too. I hope she felt heard, and I hope she reconsidered some of the perspectives she had about the protests. Maybe she did, maybe she didn’t. But I was different. 

Ultimately, I give this example to illustrate how integral it is that we don’t always dump people as friends on social media. There can be truth within their viewpoints, even if parts of them may sometimes be fundamentally wrong or unhelpful.

I don’t have clear guidelines or an answer about when we should keep people as friends on social media versus when we should unfriend them. What I want to do with this post, however, is to encourage you to be incredibly reflective before you unfriend someone on social media. Remember, the person you are unfriending is a real, live human being. I am fearful with our consumerist ways that we ditch people the same way we ditch coffee cups, fast fashion, and disposable wipes. They are an inconvenience to us, they bother us, and so we remove them from our lives so we do not have to deal with them.

This, too, is dangerous. It desensitizes us to other people as human beings, and it also cultivates an insular community in which we continually only see ourselves looking back at us. Diversity and loving others doesn’t just mean loving marginalized group. Diversity and loving others also means loving people that possess broken and flawed truths.

Sometimes we need to unfriend someone. Other times we don’t. Take the time to deeply reflect upon it when you make the decision.