Amanda 3/18/15 Convictions

3/18/15

Convictions, Courage, and the Internet

While browsing through my Facebook newsfeed this weekend, I came across a post that made my blood boil. We’ve all experienced this: a Facebook friend posts an inflammatory message that demands a response. Heart pounding, we pounce at the keyboard and hammer out an appropriately scathing—or archly informative—reply. Perhaps we hunt for an online article to prove our point, or perhaps we merely offer a withering scold. And then we hit return.

Or, we don’t.

I stopped hitting that key a few years back after realizing the blood pressure elevations prompted by arguments with strangers weren’t worth it. But I also doused my collection of firebrands because I’d started promoting my fiction through social media, and to be frank, I feared offending potential fans. While I occasionally post a link or “like” a page some might find controversial, I do so far less often…