Facebook inactivity leads to domestic violence incident

A man in Texas is now facing battery charges and pleading not guilty for assaulting his wife. Her crime? She didn’t hit ’like’ on his Facebook status update. The man, Benito Apolinar, had posted an update to Facebook about the death anniversary of his mother. When he saw that his wife of 15 years had not responded to that status update, he confronted her after he dropped their children off at her home in Carlsbad, New Mexico.

Domestic violence over a ’like’ button

“That’s amazing everyone ‘Likes’ my status but you, you’re my wife. You should be the first one to ‘Like’ my status,” he said to her before he punched her in the cheek and pulled her hair. He is reported to be under the influence of alcohol at the time. He was arrested that same evening.

This incident raises the all important question, are we putting up too much information that we care about on the social networks? Are the social networks an extension of ourselves where rejection on the networks becomes personal rejection? Could social networking be an addiction, if so much of our ego depends on websites? Apolinar is scheduled to appear in court on the 22nd of December, this year.