Social media is a great thing. We can all connect with each other and stay in contact easily with friends who live hours away.

What’s not great is how people on social media and the internet in general are so eager to spoil details on movies, TV show and video games.

Throughout December I was extremely excited to see the new Star Wars film. I grew up with the original trilogy and suffered through the prequels in theaters. I was excited to see a new film in the franchise in IMAX since it’s available close to where I live now.

A few days before I finally got to see the film Twitter spoiled some plot points that were pretty integral to the plot.

I had purposely avoided all the TV trailers and stuff to go in as blind as possible. And while I still loved the movie I feel like the spoilers robbed me of some of the surprise/experience of the film if I had been able to go in blind.

The people who spoil stuff on purpose out of spite are jerks, and I genuinely feel they should be banned from whatever website they’re using when they’re doing it. Purposely ruining the enjoyment of a movie for other people is petty.

It’s gotten to the point where if something is coming out that I want to be surprised by I have to stay off Twitter or Facebook for a week or two at a time to avoid being spoiled. Even shows I don’t care for like “The Walking Dead” get casually spoiled through Twitter.

And people aren’t just doing it out of spite some people like doing live reactions. But it would be better if they placed their reactions in a tagged spoiler thread on a forum like Reddit where people purposely have to open a link to see spoilers. Putting it out in the open is inconsiderate.

The frustrating part is just avoiding social networks isn’t good enough now. People playing Star Wars Battlefront received spoilers about the new movie in their messages by other players who they were against online. They appeared in the chat sections of Twitch streams.

I know that spoilers are going to exist as long as there is anything being released that people are excited about.

I just wish there was a way to avoid them without having to cut all connections to the internet until it’s impossible to be spoiled anymore.

A few tips on how not to spoil things for your friends. Talk about the subject in person with your friends, text your friends, go to clearly designated message boards to discuss the movie. And remember to give movies at least a few months before talking about pivotal scenes out in the open.