Gerry Brownlee may have backed down from his disparaging comment about users of social media but I still love the phrase: "buggerise around on Facebook". It happens to neatly encapsulate, in a truly down-home Kiwi style, just how I feel about the legions of people fond of liking,
Shelley Bridgeman: Isn't it time we stopped faffing about on Facebook?

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Do you have an online persona? Photo / Supplied

The use of social media appears to give some users elevated confidence levels while simultaneously stripping them of the potential for empathy. It's a dangerous combination that leads to expression of nastiness and venom without normal self-censoring. It's the online equivalent of the coprolalia associated with Tourette syndrome - where every half-formed thought, no matter how damaging or ill-advised, is given life on screen. In a world where emotions are indicated by emoticons and punctuation marks, it's easy for some to forget - or conveniently overlook - the fact that somewhere in the mix are real human beings with real feelings.
Anti-bullying campaigner Charlotte Dawson was recently hospitalised after being at the receiving end of a prolonged attack of extremely nasty tweets. There was considerable sympathy for Dawson. And while, obviously, responsibility for the comments lies with the people who made them, there were those who wondered why she a) read and b) engaged with such abuse. Clearly switching off the computer and ignoring the comments wasn't an option for her. These things can be addictive.
The much-maligned Sally Ridge is, well, maligned a lot. The Twitterverse is full of nasty comments about Ridge and her new mother-daughter fly-on-the-wall reality television show yet a scroll through her own Twitter feed reveals no meanness - just innocuous tweets, often about lunches to be or lunches past, to various girlfriends. (Actually, I don't understand why some people conduct one-to-one conversations on Twitter. Isn't that what texting or emailing is for?)
The irony with the Ridge situation is that although the consensus seems to be that neither Sally nor her daughter is interesting, important or a celebrity, the mass response and strong opinions they engender would surely suggest that they are at least one of those three things.
The most ill-considered online comment to make headlines belongs to filmmaker Barbara Sumner-Burstyn who expressed offensive views about fallen New Zealand soldier Lance Corporal Jacinda Baker. Surely only someone in the habit of routinely dumping every unedited thought onto her Facebook page could have considered such inflammatory sentiments fit for public consumption.
Needless to say, a Facebook page was immediately set up for the express purpose of venting about Sumner-Burstyn. It swiftly attracted approval from 20,000 members. As so often happens in the world of online retaliation, some of the furious response was as inappropriate as the initial remarks. All of which begs the question: Isn't it about time we stopped this faffing around on Facebook?
Are you on Facebook and/or Twitter? Do you have an online persona? Why are so many people angry online? Is the fact that some of the harshest online comments and criticism are targeted towards women a coincidence or conspiracy?