Social Media is for Idiots

How many people does it take to end the world?

Only one.

Thank Mark Zuckerberg.

Okay. Well… I’ve been told that I exaggerate a lot, so bear with me. Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt for a moment. Finding Facebook changed the world. Some would say for the better. And, in a way, that is true. We are more connected, globally. Friendships are made. Businesses are established and grow. And, hell, I’m even using social media to share this post — so it’s truly excellent in this field. But. I. Hate. It.

Social media has made confidence and cowardice the same thing. Need I remind you of internet trolls? Online, people can hide behind their screens; they can adopt a different, braver persona and not have to deal with immediate consequences. Whether insulting someone or merely messaging your friend, there’s a delay in conversation: you’re able to literally edit your response rather than being natural in the moment. Yes, being braver may be a good thing, but not when a friendship is only based on internet messages versus dead air when face-to-face. We are cowards — and, because of that, we are more nervous in actual social interactions. We hide behind our phones, have our earphones in, and block out everyone around us — and we call this social media.

But, no matter how much I say I hate it, I still find myself scrolling through it. What makes it worse is I only do it, not because I necessarily want to but to, instead, fill time. I don’t care about what I’m looking at. It’s numbing. Think about how much of our lives we actually waste pointlessly scrolling. We are slaves. We are obsessed with how we appear online. If you think popularity is a distant school worry, you’re lying to yourself.

I mean, come on, I don’t have over three-hundred friends. I don’t even think I know that many people. I guarantee that most of those on my friends list don’t even know me. Not that I add strangers. Well, you could call them strangers. But, because we went to school together, we must have this special bond — a bond so special that we don’t even know what their voice sounds like. They wouldn’t know me. No, I’m not being modest. If I appear on their timeline (that is if I fit on there because, come on, if they’ve added someone they don’t even know, they’ve got countless other Beckys on there), they wouldn’t have a clue on 1) who I was and 2) what the HECK I’d be talking about (because, when I do post once in a blue moon, I promise you it is some weird shit that only the few who know me will understand).

Out of the three-hundred-odd ‘friends’ I have on Facebook, I can list ten to twenty of those who would ‘like’ whatever I post (and ten is on a good day). Even then, if someone I hardly speak to likes it, my head spirals into the oblivion of my famous over-thinking questions: What does this mean? Do they actually know me? Did they find that funny or are they laughing at me? Did they like it by accident? Did they think I was someone else? Are they trying to connect with me? Should I like something back? Should I message them? Do they like me? Like, actually like me? Surely not. Should I start imagining our lives together? No. Don’t let anyone know you just thought of doing that. You hardly know them. Maybe I’ll post something else and see if they like it again. Nothing. What a wanker.

Either admitting that has helped people who think the same way see that they’re not alone, or it has painted a very crazy, creepy, let’s-be-cautious-of-this-weirdo-from-now-on picture of me.

I mean, why do I even have two guys who bullied me on my friends list? Oh, yeah. Because I want to see first-hand when they fall face-first into the gutter they call life while I watch at the side of the road in my limo, drinking from three flutes of my own champagne lines called Ain’t Karma a Bitch, Who’s the Nerd Now?, and That’s What You Get For Hiding my Pencil Case in Year Seven, You Assholes.

See — social media has made me bitter (well, more than usual). It has made me hold onto the past, especially by throwing ‘memories’ at me every day as if I’m stuck in the stocks. And yet I still scroll through it. I can say all I like about how I don’t post anything and that, when I do, it is all ironic, that I only do it to mock its whole principle and those who properly use it, by overusing hashtags and creating my own versions of popular posts. In my mind I am (hilarious and) rebelling, but, in reality… I’m still using it.

#iamanidiot.