Locals LIKE/HATE social media

Friendships renewed, school chums found, pictures of the grandchildren, heroic and kind gestures. This is what Beaver County participants most LIKE about being on social media and in particular Facebook with its now over one billion users.

But there is a down side of social media. A yang for the yin. A bad for every good, and sometimes the just plain ugly.

“There’s good and bad to it,” agrees Laurie Weatherill, Administrator for the popular Tofield Today Facebook group. “Even though there is an awful lot of good, we tend to remember the bad.”

He says his favourite, and what he was hoping for when he started Tofield Today, is when people post accomplishments. But he says his least favourite thing about it is how many people just post advertisements. “It’s not a buy and sell page.

“Everybody pushes the limit,” Weatherill says. “If I see a sale I usually just remove it, unless it is something to help the community or a giveaway.” For more see the July 21/15 Mercury