The first step to solving a problem is admitting you have one.
Right here, right now I will fully admit that I have a Facebook problem.
And I am not alone.
According to Psychology Today, 900 million people log in at least monthly to their Facebook accounts, resulting in 200 billion “likes” and 100 billion comments daily.
While I do not know how many of these posts are political in nature, political discussion has become a big part of our news feeds.
I went to a community consultation held Sept. 21 to review this year’s Canada Day and Summer Sizzler events. It was disheartening to see how few people attended the meeting, especially after seeing how many took to Facebook to voice their frustration with the 2017 Canada Day celebrations.
There were many good reasons to have a low-key event this year. The Humboldt Journal covered the issue in a story on Sept. 17 “City opens up consultation process to better Canada Day.”
Postings on Facebook included criticizing members of the city for not doing their jobs and the inadequacy of the events planned.
I am all for the Facebook platform that opens up discussion.
However, I do question the effectiveness of this kind of feedback.
While organization staff and members had posts on Facebook, they could not possibly find and respond to every single comment on other community discussion boards.
So what good does it do to post a complaint on Facebook? The person posting may feel better that they got to voice their opinion but very little can be done from just a Facebook post.
Especially on public groups, anyone can be a troll; someone who deliberately posts offensive or provocative comments with the aim of upsetting the audience.
Whether it is someone who does not really care about the discussion or someone from Gary, Indiana who does not even know where Saskatchewan is, it is very easy for random people to put their two cents in but are not impacted by the outcome.
The city’s Director of Community and Leisure Services, Michael Ulriksen, says he welcomes people to give him a call and have a one-on-one discussion about how this year’s Canada Day celebrations were planned.
The consultation meeting itself was called after the city received a large amount of Canada Day feedback, mostly from phone calls and discussions with city councillors.
And yet, the people who seemed to be concerned about what happened this year, judging by their online comments, did not show up.
Most people who attended the meeting were members of organizations already involved with the Summer Sizzler, such as the Humboldt and District Chamber of Commerce, the Humboldt Business Improvement District, and the JCIs (Junior Chamber International), and a lot of the discussion centred around Summer Sizzler organizing.
If we want to see things done in the community, we have to step up and join these discussions.
Facebook is not the place to get stuff done.
