SOCIAL COMMENTARY / MENTAL HEALTH
Making Friends with Facebook
Attempting the impossible
I’ve given up activism because it’s brutal and I don’t have the resilience, quite frankly.
Thing is, I’m naturally this way inclined and shit bugs me. I have kids. I want some changes, please. And if I don’t make any fucking effort, the rusty cogs of the machine will turn even more slowly.
I still have some things I wanna share, but I’m not so great at writing about actvism-y stuff. I lack patience. I’m too wordy, and I often feel as though I can’t express what I’m trying to say in ways that encourage people to listen.
Prolly because some of the things I talk about mean too much to me personally. I get strident, and that’s just annoying for everyone.
I’ll try not to do that now.
I’ve been going on about the dangers of social media since 2019.
I was informed of these concerns by a very sharp man that I met on my travels, while I was researching mental health and addiction.
His findings on the impact of social media on mental health were largely ignored by myself, like most people, until a-couple-of-months-later-back-then when I found some interesting research on this as well.
I’ve repeatedly tried to share these discoveries, but not many folks are ready to listen. I sure as hell wasn’t back then. I was on Facebook all of the time.
Events. People. News. Family. Business. Everything.
Social media is a part of our lives. We missed the boat on this one. We’re well hooked, getting fried, and it is here to stay.
So, the next best thing, to total abstinence, is to learn how to use it intelligently, I guess.
I believe this is possible, despite the subtitle above. It’s often just hard to break through the denial enough to take action … to change what isn’t working.
Are we just gonna leave it to our kids to become uncomfortable enough to make some kind of change? Not me. It’s not fair, and it’s fucking irresponsible.
See? Strident. But our children.
It’s not even that hard to use it with more awareness. Honestly. It’s not.
With a more knowledgeable and balanced approach, we could even make this work for us. We do need to know how it works to do that, though. Right?
That means accepting the shit that doesn’t work and either fixing it or working around it.
I’m still caring and sharing because this is important stuff.
Our kids are even more enmeshed in this virtual space than we are.
We also have yet to see how this new way of connecting, communicating, sharing and Be-ing will fully impact us further along the road.
Particularly the younger humans who were practically born with tablets and phones in hand.
I had many years of barely any screen time at all. I’m that old. When I left the house, nobody knew where the fuck I was until I came back for dinner. You could call from a friend’s landline or a telephone booth if you were out, so mom wouldn’t get too mad if you ran late.
Remember that?
Life was simpler back then. And slower.
When was the last time you lay on the ground with your child and watched the clouds drift by?
I feel the impact of information overload after a heavy online work day very clearly.
I also take substantial breaks from the web and my phone to reboot, regularly.
Perhaps I’m more tuned into my nervous system because of my studies in mental health and addiction.
But I think anyone who takes a three day break from the net, and their phone, and observes how differently they think and feel… will nod in agreement.
We need to be honest here to win this.
To be honest enough to observe our truth, for ourselves.
Seeing truth means seeing everything. No denial. No shadows.
All of it.
Seeing the positive and the negative both. There’s nothing to be afraid of, I promise.
With clarity of vision, comes the ability to make sound decisions. We need that now more than ever.
Please wake up.
We’re the ones pushing the buttons. We’re the ones choosing where to focus our attention. We have more control than we take credit or responsibility for.
We’ve got this.
Knock knock
Thanks for your reading time!
If you are interested in more information about Tech and Life, you may like these
Find me on Ko-fi for all of my busy-ness in one place, for a free downloads, and to send a coffee if you want to share the caffeine
By becoming a member, you can support all of the writers creating original content on Medium and send me a small commission
