<h3>By Lee Scott</h3>
Have you considered trying out some of the social media? Maybe Instagram, Twitter or Facebook? Are you hearing bad things about them? I feel your pain. When I opened up my first Facebook account, I was not quite sure how it worked, but I knew that I could connect with friends and relatives from all over the country if they had an account.

What a treat to log onto Facebook and see the latest baby pictures or vacation videos from friends. But now many people are turning off their accounts because social media has become a forum for people to express their political, social, and religious opinions, and sometimes not in the friendliest manner. It seems that the stream of offensive posts has become more prevalent. However, it has occurred to me that if I turn off my account, I would be denying myself the joy of seeing my niece Kiera’s new kitten or my cousin Pam’s boating activities. I would miss the amazing pictures of Beaufort sunrises and sunsets and the videos of dolphins playing in the creek. I would not be able to laugh at all the cute puppy videos or enjoy a host of other fun things that come across my newsfeed.

Time to put your fears to rest and connect with the rest of the world. It turns out that you can actually manage social media by “blocking” people and their posts. You can “friend” them without following them too. There are many techniques for you to keep in contact with others without getting inundated with hourly posts or tweets. I also discovered I can block certain web pages that friends like that I find offensive. Now with these newly learned controls, I am enjoying social media even more.

Do not let people scare you. Learn how to use it responsibly and have fun with family members and friends even if they have totally different interests and beliefs. Let them show you pictures of their pets, children, vacations and their links to interesting pages that you might never have known. There are fascinating Facebook and Twitter pages dedicated to travel, art, boating and just about anything you can imagine. Most cities even have their own social media pages. So, time to friend someone and time to start tweeting. Welcome to the new world.