Social Media Doesn’t Want You To Feel Sad — And You Should

It was winter and I was living in a city in the north of Mexico.

An average person would think that winter in the north of Mexico is not a cold winter, but it was. I was alone in the rental apartment that I’d been living in for six months, and my boyfriend who’d also been living with me was out of town. He was back home, a few thousand miles away from me where my friends and family all were, while I was not.

One night, my plan was to have a video chat with all of my friends. They were having a party, and my boyfriend would be there, too, all of them celebrating each other’s company on their (much colder) Canadian winter night. I was invited to join virtually.

I bought a six pack, refreshed my makeup and put on a nice top — knowing I’d be in the virtual presence of my beautiful friends while they cheersed their wine and cocktails through the screen to me, I had to play the part.

I was then seamlessly digitally transplanted into the party. An hour into our Facebook video call, I started to feel like I was there. Really. My face was being passed around — engaging in intimate conversations between sips of drinks with each of my friends as if I was in the room.

I would see something funny happen to someone across from me and call them out, and my friends and I would all laugh together. I took a drink when others did, I shouted while I spoke over the volume in my kitchen filled with their voices, I smiled in the selfies I was asked to be a part of. In every sense of the word, I was present.

But then, all of a sudden, I wasn’t.

After three or four hours — I’d lost track— it was time for my friends to go, and I wouldn’t be going with them. Uber’s here! I heard them shout, and before I could ask where they were off to my face was being passed around the room to say goodbye. And then, as if a door to a party I was suddenly shuffled out of was slammed in my face, the laptop screen closed and the room I was in fell silent.

An instant rush of loneliness stung my buzz. I felt this kick of reality — like when you’re drunk and dancing with your eyes closed and all of a sudden the lights come on. Except this time I was alone, and very far away from anyone I wanted to be with. I had been excited by my friends’ energy permeating through my screen — it had warmed my kitchen and bounced off the walls. But suddenly I was cold and it was quiet and I was reminded of how very much alone I was.

I can imagine that this must be what it feels like for others looking through social media like it’s a window into another life. For seconds or moments — or in my case hours — it feels like you’re part of it. As if your comments and likes and reactions are an intimacy you have the privilege of sharing with people you’re not physically with.

But that feeling I describe, the reminder that you’re cold and without people who care about you, doesn’t happen to you. You don’t get that feeling because you continue to move through your feeds and stories, looking through the different windows of hundreds of lives, never letting the intensity of that loneliness or sadness creep up.

Social media and technology does this incredible thing where it makes you feel wonderful, but then it can suddenly make you feel really, really sad — only if you let it, and most of us won’t.

That’s the problem.

Studies are revealing more and more about the levels of dopamine released during a social media high. It’s elating. We are so engrossed in our social media feeds and conversations because it makes us feel so good — so good that we continue to do it to maintain that feeling. It makes sense. I would have loved to keep my video party going.

But it isn’t real. I may have felt like it was, like I was there — but I wasn’t. What was real was the intensity of how I felt the moment it all ended.

You need to build an ability to just be yourself and not be doing something. That’s what the phones are taking away, is the ability to just sit there. That’s being a person. Because underneath everything in your life there is that thing, that empty — forever empty. That knowledge that it’s all for nothing and that you’re alone. It’s down there.

And sometimes when things clear away, you’re not watching anything, you’re in your car, and you start going, ‘Oh no, here it comes. That I’m alone.’ It’s starts to visit on you. Just this sadness. Life is tremendously sad, just by being in it… — Louis C.K.

I’m not someone who’s uncomfortable being alone. I didn’t mind the week I was on my own in that cold apartment. I cooked and read, exercised and wrote. I can do all of those things alone with my thoughts, happy or sad — though I do enjoy and prefer the company of my loved ones — but I’d never before felt that forever alone so intensely. It happened, and the thing is, I let it. This overwhelming sadness reminded me of home and all the things and the people that I missed.

But social media doesn’t want you to feel alone or sad. It wants you to keep feeding yourself this sense of connectedness, of presence — feelings that aren’t truly there. They’re superficial. Deep down, if the screen turned off and you were suddenly forced to face your feelings, they would come and they would scare you.

I didn’t see it coming when it happened to me — but I’m glad that it did. It showed me that virtual reality is exactly that: virtual. It’s not a replacement for real experiences and emotions, and it never will be. While I’m thankful for having the opportunity in today’s world to see and hear and feel the presence of my friends and loved ones from thousands of miles away, it will never replace physically being with them.

Those of you living through a screen as your only means to see and hear the people that matter most to you, I’m sure you can relate. It’s hard to be away and to feel that sadness in your core the moment your call ends. You’re thankful for some Facetime, but you want more than anything to be on the couch next to them. That feeling is real to you and you face it. It makes you stronger.

But many of you won’t relate. You don’t live away from the people you love, and yet you communicate with them and others more virtually than not. You scroll and chat and prefer to transplant yourself into a virtual reality even when you’re surrounded by others who are physically in your presence. You don’t face loneliness because you’ve never had to. You always have a constant stream of people and things to look at, through a screen you never turn off.

It’s time to turn it off. Face the feelings that come. Let them creep up and scare you. Let them make you stronger and more confident. Loneliness is a part of life, an emotion we’re all supposed to feel and grow from.

Don’t let social media suppress it.

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