Friday, March 26, 2010

What's your take on the seemingly-endless infidelity stories in the media anymore? Do you think social media contributes to the prevalence of cheaters coming clean?

I am pretty sick of hearing about people cheating on their spouses every single day of the week. (And to be fair, the majority of the stories are men cheating on their wives; just to make that clear.)

There are many things about this that annoy me.

1.) This sort of thing happens everywhere all the time. That is bad enough. But to make it news is more than I want to know and stresses the sexuality of our culture and the constant prying into people's personal lives. (And this is coming from someone who puts more than half of what he does in public places for others to read.) But I hated how so much of the Clinton impeachment mess centered around the (undeniably) poor personal actions he took rather than the policy issues that others disliked him for.

2.) Like I said, this stuff happens all the time to ordinary people. But we only hear about the celebrity scandal. As if we didn't given them enough credit as it is. But we love to build people up so that we have the pleasure of tearing them down later.

3.) I'd like the media to spend more time trying to educate people on the really significant problems we face and highlighting ways to honestly solve those problems. But that doesn't get you ratings.

Now . . . for the bit of the question about social media contributing to cheaters coming clean . . . maybe? I'm not really sure to be honest. It is certainly more likely that cheaters can get caught due to slip ups and mistakes made on social media sites. But I don't think it encourages people to come clean. There is very little in the world that makes people admit their mistakes before they are caught. And even then many will continue to deny until they are backed so far into a corner that there is absolutely no choice but to reluctantly admit the truth . . . as they see it.

People aren't going to change their behavior because they are worried about Facebook or Twitter. They'll just twist their lying schemes every tighter and more complex to accommodate those things. And by doing, they'll eventually get caught. But just because living a lie is so much harder and demanding than living the truth.

So, there is my answer.

Thanks for asking!

1 comment:

Kelly Ball said...

Well said, Sir. Props for the Clinton mention. That's an interesting consideration. I think I should have phrased my second question differently, but no matter.