Social Media: Closeness, distance, envy, inadequacy.

It’s come to that time in my life where my Facebook wall is no longer populated by photographs of friends graduating from university or getting turnt on a Saturday night at a warehouse which happens to be next to a filthy canal which once gave someone tetanus.

It is instead a collage of engagements, weddings, newborn babies and recent couplings. 
 
 Close friends who would once hold my hair back as my head entered the toilet bowl are now in responsible partnerships, discussing futures together, shared goals and travel plans. 
 
 Close friends who would go thrift shopping with me at the Sunday markets after a quick, serendipitous phone call where we’d relay our mutual boredom are now unresponsive; most likely because they have a partner beside them in bed spooning them tightly, or spooning painkillers into their open mouths to ward off a hangover.

Most likely though, it’s because these friendships seem to become less intense as we mature, as the energy once expended on them is now directed towards significant others.

As this change takes place, friends become more like friendly satellites, instead of partners in crime and exclusive confidantes as they once were.

Now, I’d like to think that I’m more single minded than most, but if there’s one thing most Facebook and Instagram users know, it’s that using social media can make us feel inadequate, like our lives don’t stack up when compared to our peers.

I of course, am not immune, and I do feel the pangs of jealousy when I’m scrolling through my smartphone on a rainy Tuesday morning and I see a photograph of my old best friend smiling with her husband of 9 months in their kitsch Berlin apartment. Intrusive, envious questions are raised such as, “where did they even buy that amazing 1970s dinnerware set?” and “how have they accumulated so many records in such a short time?”

Of course, we know social media isn’t a depiction of reality. Its’ very functionality has enabled us to be the architects of narcissism, broadcasting projected versions of our ideal selves for that split-second dopamine pang when a new ‘Like’ appears in our notifications.

This addictive nature has lead us to obsessively document our lives on the hunt for that ‘pang’, and the consequence of this is that social norms regarding what constitutes the ‘successes’ of life are repeatedly reinforced as we seek the validation from friends about our life choices.

As someone who now identifies as being single in my late 20s after a seemingly constant succession of relationships, I am trying to find my groove in the world. I now live alone in a decent enough apartment after years of share housing, I have a decent job, and I have an adorable cat that converts even the most vehement non-cat appreciator.

Additionally, as someone who also struggled with the now seemingly obligatory experience of early 20s depression and anxiety (not to trivialise either condition), I am especially proud of how far I’ve come.

Unfortunately, this sense of pride easily comes undone when faced with the onslaught of images, events and memories available via social media, as it reminds me that I’m not where my peers are at.

Social media also causes us to seek one another out less in person, to pick up the phone less and to instead visit the page of a friend to see what they’re up to. In some ways, this means that a person’s projections of self can then stand to substitute for true interaction and connection. Depressingly, it seems that in order to maintain some semblance of friendship using social media as a tool, we are complicit in acts of stalking and exhibitionism.

As shameful as it is to admit and as easy as it is to say “have some backbone” — I do wonder about how social media not only shapes our projections of the self, but also shapes how we feel about ourselves in the world. And as I watch the people I love and admire at a distance behind a screen, because their lives have changed and they’re at a different stage to me and I rarely see them now, I sometimes ask myself: have I done enough? Have I been enough? Am I enough?

When we construct and publish our digital identities, are we also unknowingly condemning the identities and life choices of others?