Swipe. Swipe. Swipe. Pause. Like. Swipe. Swipe. Swipe. Swipe. Pause. Share. Swipe. Post.

And so goes the great time sucker, Social Media.

As a classic mid-life female and mom, my go-to Social platform is still Facebook.  It is the network in which my 19-year old son has no interest because it is for “old people”, and when I excitedly show him something I saw on there, he glances at it, and with disdain says “yeah, I saw that about a month ago.”  Ok, fine. You go be young & trendy on your own social feeds, leave me to my black hole of never-ending ridiculousness.

The other day when I was swiping through the most recent digital pile of fodder on a couple of different platforms (I do vary from FB occasionally) for the usual only-5-minutes-that-turned-into-20, I realized that I really do spend a lot of time swiping past things I don’t care about.  And I realized that we moms and real women with busy schedules could possibly suggest some organizational changes to the Zuke.  (That’s me being hip calling him by a nickname. Hey, its better than me saying “that nice rich young man in a hoodie”).

What if, besides the existing groups and pages, there was a menu of Categories, and all like-minded posts ran in the appropriate categories?   First up would be the network for those with poor grammatical skills and misspellings.  That would spare those of us who are hyper-sensitive to errors from the agonizing and frustrating impulse to make corrections.  Next up would need to be the category for the Angry and Venting. Oh, so much crankiness.  All the irritated posters can hang out together in their own unhappy world.  Next door to that of course, would be Political Posturing, which is closely related (especially lately) to the Angry sharers.  Other categories to visit, review and post would be:  Animals (for all of those great goat, dog and kitten videos), Nature (for all the budding photographers), Kids (just like the Animals network but human), News (real and fake), Inspirational and Thought Provoking (for all those deep thoughts), Selfie City (for the young ladies who need to show how they look so different right now compared to an hour ago), The Obscure (for those posts that make absolutely no sense to the rest of us), Just Plain Funny (which would be the most likely to be shared content) and, let us not forget, FOOD.  Oh, and please, please, let’s have a separate category for the Ambiguous and Leading… you know, the posts with no detail but plenty of drama like “Such a hard day.”  And “I should have known better.”

Think how great it would be to be able to select which type of posts you feel like viewing at any moment. Someone cut you off in traffic? Swipe to Angry and Venting.  Need a lift?  Click on Inspirational or Just Plain Funny.  Not sure what to make for dinner?  Slide over to Food.  Kind of like Pinterest, but more organized.

Can you imagine if we could categorize other areas in our lives?  How about swipe-selections for driving.  Those in a rush and suffering from road rage?  You drive over in those lanes where there are big soft cushions (like on bumper car courses) to help with all the accidents you’ll cause, and feel free to yell creative obscenities out the windows at each other — no one will be offended because you are all cranky together.   Those of you who are over the age of 70 or enjoy Sunday drives?  We have a lovely country- side view over here in the Slow-Mo lanes.  Mom taxies, here’s your straight-shot-don’t-get-in-my way route.  Confused and Lost drivers?  Head for the lanes with no rotaries, and giant large-type signs with neon arrows.

We could even do this in grocery stores.  Full-scale full-cart shoppers?  Here are your wide aisles with bulk sales and helpful baggers.  Speedy I-just-need-three-things Rushers?  Here’s your race-track aisles free of clutter and extraneous products.  Social Shoppers?  Here are lanes with lounge areas so you can have a seat and chat instead of blocking the center of the aisles.  And let’s be sure to add the section for Confused Men, with helpers to point out the brands their partners have requested, to explain what the heck cardamom is, and where to find dried fruit or cling wrap.

Sure, I get it, as much as we may want to, swiping past certain people and situations in real life is not possible or appropriate.  But you’ve gotta admit that saving some time in the digital world to more easily find what matters to us is appealing.  Pretty soon that “oops, I didn’t mean to spend half an hour looking at celebrity gossip” could be whittled down to “ahh, 4 minutes of a beach-goer saving a sea turtle. I feel better.”

Oh, geez, I just realized I missed a vital category: the Put Your Feet Up and Read Blog Posts network.  Thanks for visiting. You may now commence swiping.