Just when you think you’ve mastered email and text messaging, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram come in and mess up all the time you’ve spent understanding online etiquette and the dangers of sending nude photos.
Maybe you’re on the older end of the spectrum and the likes of Snapchat, Vine and Tinder are for the young and dumb, or maybe you’re a man on the go with little time to swipe and zoom, let alone click attending on a Facebook event, or in an act of defiance you’ve ditched social media altogether with the healthy epiphany that there are far more important things in life.
No matter which category you fall into, or don’t fall into, here are the 7 signs you’ve got lame ‘dad’ habits on social media.
#1 You Don’t Know How To Take Or Post A Selfie
These days iPhones come with plenty of pitfalls when taking a selfie. Firstly, there’s locating the reverse camera feature, then there’s making sure you’re not actually recording a video, and that’s not even getting to when you have to post it online. Your best bet is to get a mate to just take the photo for you, and when it comes to posting, double check before you blast 100 ‘practice’ shots off into the World Wide Web.
#2 You Often Like Photos From Over A Year Ago
You’ve been enjoying a cheeky scroll and stalk of someone’s Instagram profile and BOOM, you’ve tapped the like button. Not only is a notification going to pop up for that person saying you’ve like a picture from 56 weeks ago, you’ve just been caught red handed being a bit of a creep. Give yourself a one week rule.
#3 You Don’t Know How To Use Hashtags
Hashtag: a word or phrase preceded by a hash sign (#), used on social media sites such as Twitter to identify messages on a specific topic. It’s a weird concept when you think about it, but putting a the (#) symbol at the end of a word or phrase, hashtagging entire sentences, or using #too #many #hashtags isn’t going to do you any favours on social media.
#4 You Try To Zoom Or Swipe On Instagram
One day a kind and clever soul out there will integrate all technologies and make it possible to zoom and swipe whatever you want, whenever you want, wherever you want. Up until that happens, however, try to avoid the accidental zoom and swipe on Instagram, as it could lead to accidentally liking a photo (as outlined in point #2) and will grant you lame dad status instantly.
#5 You Post Overly Encouraging Comments
No one is knocking your enthusiasm, and good on you for getting involved, but perhaps it’s best to leave the cheese at home and simply click the ‘like’ button instead of a) posting “you go girl!” on a photo of your 2nd cousin twice removed who has just had a baby, or worse, commenting with an entire essay of your thoughts on the meaning of life.
#6 You Have To Put Glasses On Before Looking At Social Media
Whilst we admit this is a silly point because in all fairness, plenty of people in the world actually need glasses, if you deliberately have to bust out a pair of coke bottle glasses just to glance at a funny Instagram pic, you may appear to have reached the pinnacle of lame dad on social media once again.
#7 You Constantly Share & Tag People In Meaningful Quotes And Memes
Again, there’s nothing wrong with sharing funny, poignant and thought-provoking posts on Facebook, but if everyday your family and friends are waking up to 20 notifications from you tagging them in their weekly horoscope or a grainy, unfunny meme, maybe it’s time to ease off.