Getting Over Social Media
Detoxing for life — maybe.
News flash — social media is fun. And profitable. And addicting. So addicting.
That tweet about scrolling being the new smoking hit the nail on the head.
You can while away hours and hours in one position, eyes glued to your screen. And afterwards? What do you get afterwards?
Nothing, really.
It’s during your exploration of and involvement in all the major apps and sites that you feel good, that you feel what you’re doing is a pleasure too good to pass up.
Actually, you won’t even really process it, which is why, sometimes, distress at the amount of time gone by can follow. I know distress only scratches the surface of what I feel when I’m online, scrolling, swiping and pinch-zooming.
That’s why I don’t. Not never but hardly ever.
By now, the negative association I’ve formed between social media use and how I feel afterwards is so strong that I avoid it.
Images and videos are stimulating. They’re nice to look at, and easy. Much easier than reading a book and much more enjoyable (at least for some) than listening to a podcast.
It’s almost not an exaggeration to say that 70–90% of the average person’s screen time is social-media related.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing. But in my experience there are a lot of other things that are more fulfilling.
The other day I hopped on Youtube to watch highlights of past UFC bouts. I usually don’t go overboard but the famed Youtube algorithm was at peak performance level and really tangled me in its web. When I checked my watch, I realized it had been three and a half hours.
Sure, I can’t say I didn’t enjoy devouring video after video. But was it worth it? I didn’t know that it was.
Whereas I also recently stayed home during a hot spell, cleaning and drawing. I deliberately stowed my phone in a hard-to-reach cupboard corner and didn’t touch it till later that evening. I eventually forgot about it. Time still passed, but when I acknowledged that it did, I didn’t mind.
In the end, I was happier than before — and by a wide margin. A sparkling bathtub, floors and windows, plus a dabbler’s attempt at portraiture, can do that.
This wasn’t my breakthrough, a-ha moment. I’ve always known that social media was a blast but that its effect soon faded, like a light tan. This was more of a reminder of what life offline can really be.
It’s human nature, I think, to seek validation. We all want to be loved. More than that, we want to be seen as attractive, smart, funny — on and on and on. At the very least, we don’t want bad traits attached to our name.
Social media is the perfect vessel to carry us in that direction.
Hand-pick what parts of our life we want to share with the world and we’re instantly rewarded with likes, with comments, with validation.
I remember when I used to post something — a tweet, a picture — and watch it closely as it went live. If it didn’t “perform” well, I’d quickly take it down. Maybe later I would try again. Sometimes I would just accept that whatever I had put up was not deserving.
Why was I looking for others to convince me that my life was interesting? That I was interesting?
It was as if I could only develop self-belief through the positive reinforcement of others.
Let’s face it: even as I write this, I’m hoping that it will be read. If it gets a thumbs up and is shared or highlighted, that’s a bonus. If the opposite happens, of course it will sting.
To me life seems like an unsolvable puzzle when it’s all about earning the respect of others. Why it’s so hard to just earn our own respect, I don’t know.
Chasing approval is deceptive.
You get it and are satisfied. But sooner or later you crave more. You have it one way but want it in another. First it’s your outfit, then it’s your wedding, then your vacation, then your work. It’s one long road that never ends.
Swearing off social media almost feels like a moral victory. Or it sounds like one.
When I used to hear about people who were no longer on this or that app, I considered them self-important. The irony was that they claimed they were getting off it because they didn’t care about or need others to be okay with who they were. But then why were they announcing their decision? Didn’t that mean they did in fact care?
Social media is not bad. If it is, it’s not all bad and there are so many benefits to it that being a religious user is nothing to be ashamed of.
Yes, it’s a false representation of reality, an attempt to have one’s ego stroked, a vacuum where time and space vanish. All that and more.
Still, how amazing is it to stay connected with friends, to plug into pop culture and trends, to make money, entertain and be entertained?
I would love to see social media in a light that blinds me to its drawbacks. Maybe a pessimist, I just can’t pull that trick off.
Now when I try to use Instagram, I can’t resist saying to myself —
“This is so heavily edited that I can’t not assume it’s to get clicks, which will increase your visibility, which will lead to followers, which will be a source of income. It’s all built on stretching the truth!”
An unnecessarily complicated thought process, this is simply how the cogs in my mind turn.
But maybe I shouldn’t get so caught up in the details. Writing is for an audience, after all, and I do enjoy that.
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