“For me, I believe if social networks didn't exist, I would have far less interaction with close friends and acquaintances.” ~ Stephen Robles, blogger.
“Really?” ~ Me
I
remember what life was like before the Internet – when people made time for those
close friends and acquaintances in real life. If they were close or even
important, you would make time for them and not just their Facebook wall, Instagram or Twitter feed,
right?
In
theory.
However,
his words mirror the thoughts and actions of anyone who has a social network account. Social networks, and texting, while fun and having their advantages, have made it easier
to be impersonal while ‘appearing’ to be more personal. It’s debilitating our
ability to be actively social in-person or at least on a more personal level.
Go to the movies, coffee shop or even dinner. Look around and tell me what you see. I'll tell you what I see: people on their phones, texting or checking and updating their social network pages while they are in the company of other people. No one is really talking to each other and if they are, it's about what they are busy looking at in their phones.
They are like zombies.
How many
times have you text or called someone with no reply only to log into Facebook
and find they’ve been active online – including your page? I once got a message from a friend asking if
I would be at his party and when I told him I had no idea what he was talking
about, his response was, “well, I sent an event invite on Facebook.”
Instead
of texting me the details, he kept trying to get the invite app to work on
Facebook; but no matter what he did, I couldn’t see it. Then I remembered: I
disabled those things, they were cluttering up my inbox. I figured if it wasn’t
worth a call or, at the least, a text, it wasn’t important.
What is
important is how much of our lives we can put on blast.
Social
media has become a vehicle for our inner narcissist, allowing us to exploit
every detail of our lives in order to ‘feel’ seen. We want every one of our
Internet friends to know how interesting, funny, pretty, swole, worldly and awesome we are and we like to illustrate those facts with … PICTURES …Lots
and lots of pictures … and HASHTAGS. Because if you don’t hashtag all your
personality points, how are people supposed to know all these amazing facts
about you (without actually having to interact with you)???
I fucking
hate hashtags.
But I
love looking at pictures. And making fun of people who use hashtags.
I have a
‘like/dislike’ with social networks. On the one hand, it’s been a great tool in
sharing my work as a model, photographer, designer and writer as well as a
great source of endless entertainment when I’m bored – which isn’t really that
often.
Also, my
family is spread out, so it’s easier to see, share pictures and keep up with
what they are doing. Of course, if they would use it more, I think that
argument might actually be valid …
Within
the social networks, I’ve been able to keep up with friends and make new ones.
Which is what social media is about, right? I may not write to them everyday,
but I will ‘like’ a multitude of interesting posts that come across my newsfeed
– which I explore and read and which, in turn, causes time to pass at what
seems like warp speed.
But other
than that, it can be an overwhelming and consuming life waster (see warp speed
comment above). From one post to the next picture, before I know it, I’ve
wasted too many moments looking at everyone else’s lives, taking away from the
moments in my own.
Life is a
fluid series of moments scattered with pauses that allow us to take
those moments in and, yes, preserve them as memories. We do that with
pictures and words we intend to share with family and friends - as soon
as possible through social networks like Twitter, Facebook and
Instagram.
- Just discovered my inner goddess! Awesome, I have to tell everyone how many shades of gray THAT took to find! POSTING IT NOW!
- Woke up not wanting to wake up, checking my FB, gonna hit the gym and get my fitness on, eat CLEAN, IG pics of that, ready for a great day at work followed by an amazing evening with someone special who shall not be named to do an activity I will be ambiguous about so people will comment me out of curiosity and hopefully that person's ex will see it and weep at the loss and GOD BLESS EVERYONE I'm so happy so y'all deserve to be happy, too!!! I will keep everyone POSTED throughout the day! Posting it NOW!
- I have to find a famous quote, movie quote or something else that defines who I am and/or what I'm going through right now and POST IT!
- My entire life needs to be POSTED … NOW!!!
THEN ...
I need to add no less than one thousand hashtags on all that shit so everyone in cyberspace can find it ... and 'LIKE' it. NOW.
Seriously
...
I get it.
The ability to broadcast everything about our lives has become important – we
feel validated when we are acknowledged - online. But NOTHING we are doing right now
has to be published immediately. We might miss a smile, a word, a sunset, a
kiss, an adventure or ... well, there are those who could possibly be saved from the
unfortunate opportunities that arise from the use of portable telephonic
devices in conjunction with social media while intoxicated.
We spend so
much time online and on our smartphones and say we don’t have time to do anything when we clearly make time to be online. We share everything about ourselves with people who don’t know us and next to
nothing with the people we should who are right in front of us. It’s becoming a pandemic
of epidemic proportions.
So ...
I
challenge every one of my social media friends to disconnect from the social
media networks for longer than your work or school day and do something that
doesn't require an internet connection. Use the extra time (and you will find there’s a
lot of it now) to do the things you complain there isn’t enough time to do in
the day. Go see friends in real life, get your fitness on, enjoy a hobby or just
spend that much more time enjoying your life’s moments.
And put
your freakin' phone down. You’re going to miss something amazing.
‘LIKE’ …
your life. (pun intended.)
You can
always share it with us later. We’ll be scrolling. Promise.
