Social Media is spoiling my favorite television shows By Heidi Walters

Normally, when social media and TV come together it ends up working well. They’re just two things that seem to go well together. But when that combination goes wrong, it can ruin one of your favorite TV shows.

In today’s world, people check Facebook and Twitter like they would check the time. They’ll even be on Facebook or Twitter while they are watching a TV show or a movie. I’ve noticed lately that most shows will even have hash tags in the corner of the TV screen. By doing this, they hope more people will end up talking about their show on Twitter.

While it’s good publicity for them, it’s horrible for people who have missed an episode of their favorite show and get on Twitter to see a bunch of tweets about that episode.

My Sunday nights are usually occupied with the new episode of “The Walking Dead.” Sunday, November 4, I happened to miss the new episode because I was traveling home from being out of town over the weekend. Not really thinking, I got online to check my Facebook, and there were a few statuses that I stumbled upon revealing major events that had happened in the new episode.

I was beyond upset, and for people who watch “The Walking Dead,” I’m sure you would agree it was a completely shocking episode. Events took place in this episode that were completely mind blowing and mostly unexpected.

Stumbling upon the spoilers angered me; I wanted to be able to watch the episode and see it for myself. Now when I can finally sit down and watch, I’m going to know what is going to happen. It takes all the fun out of watching it in the first place.

I won’t go into detail about the events that were ruined for me, because I don’t want to be the person that ruins it for you too.

Usually, you see a “spoiler alert” so then you know not to read or look at something if you don’t want the episode to be ruined. The problem with Facebook and Twitter is that ordinary people don’t normally put “spoiler alert.” They just post what they want, when they want. Which is what social media is about, having an outlet to voice whatever you would like.

Someone could simply say, “Well why don’t you just stay off Facebook or Twitter? Then you wouldn’t have to worry about seeing any kind of spoilers.”

Maybe a few years ago, that would have been something easily done. But living in today’s world, I think people check their Facebook and Twitter without even any thought to it. It’s just something that happens on a regular basis. Feeling bored? Let’s open up Facebook or Twitter and see what is going on.

I know that I, sometimes not even realizing it, unlock my phone and one of the first things I do is either click the Facebook icon or Twitter icon and check it. It’s just a habit.

So the option of not looking at social media isn’t necessarily going to work out for me, and I’m sure a lot of Americans feel the same way. For a possible solution though, I could post something online earlier in the day on Sunday, and send out a mass text message to my friends letting them know not to send any spoilers of the episode to me. That may work, and then just try to avoid social media as much as possible.

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