Social Media And The Pervasive Fear Of Missing Out
The battle to resist the pull of Social Media in my every day life.
I recently entertained the idea of getting snapchat back after over a year and a half without social media.
Occasionally my uncle will send me amazing videos of my 1 year old cousin and their dog up to all sorts of mischief together. One day I asked if he had any more. He suggested maybe I should get snapchat back as he puts loads of videos of their adventures up there on his story.
For the maybe the first time ever, I was presented with a potentially wholesome use of social media. I immediately started to consider it. Then alarm bells started going off in my ahead about how detrimental that could be to my mental health.
I remember life with social media, it was not pretty.
But maybe this time would be different I argued. After all I had a wholesome reason to use it.
On one hand, it’s a way to share special moments with family and friends. On the other hand, I know what comes with snapchat.
Watching Snapchat story after Snapchat story. Looking at my friends, family, strangers I met this one time, all having a great time, while I’m in bed, or worse, stuck in work. Yep, what a way to really tank your mental health.
At any given time, there are an untold number of people having a better time than me right now. That’s not to say they don’t have monotinous moments in their lives. They’re just not broadcasting them eating their toast in the work canteen while they take their lunch break.
I don’t need to be blasted with the illusion that everyone’s life is infinitely more exciting than mine.
But the question I asked myself. Will I give in to this temptation? Will I end up mindlessly consuming Social Media? I just want it to see the videos of my little cousin. Surely I have enough will power to use it in a healthy manner.
At the end of the day though, social media is designed to draw you in and keep you coming back.
It’s no secret social media companies like Snapchat hire attention engineers who use gambling principles to try keep you hooked on their app.
Using it in the most pure way possible and just looking at family videos, I’d have to check in at least once a day or I’d miss something because stories only last 24 hours.
So even if I did manage to use it on my own terms and not get roped in, I’d be wasting time and willpower resisting the draw of snapchat into its mindless use.
I think it says a lot about our society and culture when these are the kinds of questions we are asking ourselves. These are the choices we have to make.
We can’t wholeosomely use Social Media because it has another agenda for us. The entanglement of our friends and family with social media platforms increases the effort needed for us to stay detached from it.
If you enjoyed this article, here’s another you may like that might inspire you to drop social media yourself!
