If you have been a long timer reader, you know that I had struggled with social media since the beginning. I lost the count of how many Facebook and Instagram accounts I have created to later delete them. The reason for this has been: anxiety, overthinking and to control the quality of people I keep around me.
I am a big advocate against social media for a variety of reasons, but today I want to focus on:
FRIENDSHIPS
The reason why society believes they need social media to succeed is because the engineering was set to push that mindset. People, even the CHURCH fell for it and we are seeing the damage. Majority of Christians are now worried about how christian they look on the gram rather than in real life. Almost no body brings a real hard copy Bible on sundays anymore, everybody has their phones ready and they believe that because they read the verse of the day on a Bible app or on the gram, they already spent time with God.
INTERACTION
You are not interacting with friends or keeping friendships, you are interacting with their content (ego). Notice how you will like almost all of their feed but they won't take time to even take a look at yours?
"Oh you look so cute, BOMB, cutie pie": I mean, can social media get more narcissist? People now aim to read comments about how great they look, how good they are doing...in resume, people want to be PRAISED and that's why they have 5k followers but just 5 friends that actually leave comments. The need of validation and to receive compliments for posting everyday personal details is the new drug.
Their 4 cruises in the year, the luxy shopping spree, the trip to Paris, the nude photos (because they now believe they are too cool to act like celebrities), the alcohol, their multiple partners, the new car, their new dog, everyday food, everyday road-trips...endless list.
People believe their everyday breakfast is THAT important and that it will make them famous and different from the crowd.
FAME
Nowadays, people meet in random scenarios and immediately follow each other on social media.
Why?
Followers
And to keep the image of "I am social"
A month passed, you will never hear again from that random stranger your cousin introduced you that night. You don't dare to un-follow because you don't want to be un-follwed, because a substraction in your followers count will hurt your ego. The dopamine produced when you see the 25 likes out of 5k "followers" keeps you alive and living with purpose.
Isn't it?
Friends will keep in touch with you, they will have genuine intentions about how is your life going. Real friends care about your projects and show their support. Real friends have your phone number and never doubt sending you a text message to see if you are available to chat or to meet in person. Real friends visit each other often and make plans together. Real friends respects each other and will never break your trust (heart).
Effective Social Media
Social media is genuine when you have a private account with your tribe and if you have mastered the art of not over sharing. Because even your best friends will be creep out once they start seeing you post way too much about your breakfast and the makeup you bought two weeks ago. Understand that we have reviews all over the internet and if I want your opinion about something, I will ask for it. Social media is full of experts nowadays and we already surpassed the era of wanting to be heard about topics nobody asked you. Social media is effective when you apply real life etiquette. You will never bombard your friends with nonsense. Sometimes is not what you do, is how often you do it.
"...to control the quality of people I keep around me", why?
Lets dive into the fact that having social media keeps you chained to dead friendships that you no longer want them knowing your business. Are you willing to keep editing settings in order to keep your privacy and mental sanity? Sometimes you no longer feel the same connection because life happens, and people's lives change and friendships do end. Sometimes they are not meant to last forever and that is fine, it is called life. Also, be aware of the fact that at the beginning of every relationship, everybody show their best and push to the limit their good side. But later, they start getting loose and you start seeing a side that does not fit in your design. It can be gossip, bad attitudes, ego, pride...it can be anything that simply does not fits in your lifestyle.
STORYTIME
Long time ago I met this woman that seemed to be the most gentile and sweet kind. We use to get together a lot with other friends. One day, this woman started speaking hurtful things about 2 brothers (sister and brother) that were sweet and kind. The kind of people that finds a way to your heart very quick. Genuine people. This woman and her husband would speak about the brother in a very dismissive way behind his back just because for some reason he did not wanted to get rid of his old car. He was a student and who knows the reasons why he wanted to stay with that car. So they were saying he was a nobody and someone with a lack of desire to progress in life. I was MUTE the minute I heard these words coming from her mouth. I did not wanted to say anything. I felt so out of place and bad for even hearing such hard words about a guy that showed nothing but love and respect for that family.
Later, I learnt that this woman wanted me to date his son. I said no, that I was not feeling what she was telling me. Before I knew any of this, it happened that this woman told me that the sister was actually in love with her son, and that she (the sister) wishes he (the son of this woman) was in love with her and how aspects of the sister personality were childish (according to this woman)...
Again, I was in mute, this happened minutes before she gave me a ride to my home. I was in shock because how was possible that this woman that was all "love and kindness", could be speaking so nasty about humble people that were trusting her.
That is how I slowly started cleaning my friendship area.
Why? Because I knew for a fact that she was probably speaking nasty things about me too. When someone speaks about others to or with you, they speak about you with them or others. And I believe that when I took the sad and wrong decision of leaving the faith and living wrong before the Lord, she definitely spoke nasty things about me. This woman and her family left the island without telling me or saying goodbye. I found out via Facebook. She once contacted me and started asking intrusive questions and I knew for a fact she was not trying to help me, but trying to get the tea.
That was it for me.
There is people that plainly don't care, but there are others like me that can be bothered due to mental health or because they value strict privacy. I learnt to value my privacy so much that I am happy to know a few people enters this blog. LOL, I know it looks like a contradiction, but this blog is my diary and the source for people to get to know me better. It is part of my stress relief therapy. It has always been.
In my case I decided that the best for me is to do not have social media specially facebook. I grew to hate facebook for the drama I have witnessed along years. Instagram is better to handle since you follow accounts of your interest and the content you share and see is very limited and more under control. On the contrary, facebook will always push content we don't want to see, suggest a lot of crap, and people tends to leave terrible comments more often, more elaborated. They belong together, but still, differences can be recognized.
Bottom line...
If you need to have social media to keep friends and family around, you have a problem right there. Social media is not for everyone, I am one of them.
Keep Moving, Forward,
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