EDITORIAL: Social media is rotting souls, eating brains

Kids say the darndest things.

With apologies to Art Linkletter, whose popular TV show preceded the plague of social media, so do adults. Only the grown-ups who should know better take it a step deeper into the mire. They say the darndest things in writing.

Those of you without appetite for another social media rant, feel free to proceed now to today’s Letters to the Editor. Or the Funnies page, because sometimes if we don’t laugh, we have no alternative but to cry.

In a recent Press article, law enforcement lamented the stuff and nonsense routinely perpetrated on social media channels. But here’s where it really is no laughing matter: Some, shall we call them, manure spreaders dump their suspicious loads on social media without even thinking about first contacting police.

Cases in point include a delivery person allegedly stealing packages on porches (it was actually a delivery person dropping off packages) and a social media “report” of child endangerment or enticement (two men were actually trying to help a child).

So here are two takeaways for you, and we don’t mean a pair of unattended packages on somebody's porch.

First, if you witness something you think is a crime in progress: CALL THE POLICE. Reach for the phone and dial 911; don’t tap your Facebook app. If you’re so addicted to social media that you’re absolutely compelled to post something thrilling, please, stir a little common sense into the commentary.

JUST WRONG: “Hey, I saw a suspicious dude in a white van taking packages from Fort Ground porches. WTF and LOL”

WRONG BUT SLIGHTLY BETTER: “I live in the Fort Ground neighborhood and just contacted CDA Police because I think I just saw some dude taking packages from porches. WTF and LOL."

There’s a whole other level to this topic, and it occupies a smelly suite in hell’s basement. Yes, even a level below the thoughtless people who initially post dung on social media. That lower level is inhabited by those who eagerly consume the dung and then gleefully spread it.

Social media is the last place people should go for accurate information. Unfortunately, there are legions of social media consumers who will not only take anything they read as gospel, but then work up a good sweat peddling the bogus info to other gullible manure consumers.

As the philosopher Ron White noted, you can’t fix stupid. But sometimes you can impinge enough on the keyboard crazies to stop for just a damn moment and try very hard to think before letting their fingertips go all aflutter.

See a crime? Call the cops, for cryin’ out loud.

Then they can go ahead and comment on Joe Biden’s devil-worshiping dog or the Pluto-sized asteroid headed straight for North Idaho.

The editorial was corrected to show it was Ron White, not Jeff Foxworthy, who made "You can't fix stupid" famous.