So this post is going to be more of a rant than anything else, but it’s something that’s been simmering with me for a long while now and I just feel like getting it off my chest, so bare with me for a bit.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand the world’s love affair with social media. I know why it’s important across personal and professional relationships. I use it myself, almost all the platforms. But lately, I’m starting to get fairly angry about what it has done to our personal relationships. Let’s break it down.
Love:
I love that I can keep up-to-date on my friends and family and their lives. I love seeing the photos of people’s kids, reading about the funny things they do, hearing about vacations and momentous occasions. How amazing in this day and age how EASY it is to share long distance with the ones you love.
Hate:
“How EASY it is to share long distance with the ones you love.” – this right here is my main rant. I HATE how “EASY” Facebook, Instagram, and other social media sites have made it to feel “connected” to those you care about, because while these sites make you FEEL connected, are you REALLY? What do you really KNOW about their lives besides what they share on their feed? Sure, it may LOOK amazing, but without that face to face or at LEAST voice to voice interaction, how do you know it really is? How many times do I see posts about people who committed suicide or went off the deep end, where the “friends and family” had NO IDEA they were hurting. NO IDEA they were struggling. NO IDEA they were depressed. I guarantee that at some point if SOMEONE had taken the time out to truly listen, ask a question, just sit down and say “hey, how are you REALLY doing lately?”, there would have been a hint, something to pick up on… a note of desperation in their voice, a stray comment, a tone, a FEELING, anything. It’s there, but we no longer search it out because we only see what pops up on our screens.
I was thinking to myself last night, chatting to an “online only” friend on Facebook Messenger (I told you, I use social media just as much as everyone else) – how sad is it that so many of my “REAL LIFE” friendships, people who I have had in my life for so long, people I’ve hung out with, seen marriages, babies born, graduated high school with, worked with, hung out together with our kids and had playdates… SO MANY of them have fizzled out. I get that life gets busy, and that I don’t “work” anymore and so many of them do. There’s just not two-sided effort being made anymore. No one pops in on messenger to check in and say “hey, how have you been doing, haven’t heard from you in a while”, or sends a text inviting their friend for a lunch date, or says “hey, let’s get the kids together this weekend”. Lately a few of them don’t even respond when I reach out. But because Social Media is savvy, I KNOW they’ve read the message I sent, and now I get butt-hurt because I feel like I’ve been broken up with and I don’t even know WHY. Then the self-doubt starts to creep in, the depression, the isolation, and believe you me, it can get pretty dark inside sometimes.
I can’t even tell you how sad this makes me. I’ve always tried to be that person that is always there, if you need a favor, if you need help with something, if you just wanted to chat… but where are the friends that want to chat and hang out when they DON’T need something from me? What happened to all that? I get that people have busy lives now, but come on, busy doesn’t stop most people from posting crap constantly on social media.
LOVE:
The ease of finding reviews, recommendations, and small or local businesses to try.
HATE:
The ease of finding reviews, recommendations, and small or local businesses to try. Y’all, I’ve seen this happen. I live in a small town now, and I’ve lived in a small town for YEARS. I even RUN a local FB Group. I have see this group social media mentality totally SQUASH a small business. Like burn it to the ground, seriously. ONE person has a bad experience somewhere, or even a mediocre experience that they’ve decided to embellish on, and it turns into a wildfire overnight. People immediately stop going there, and spreading the “well, I HEARD such and such” and within months, sometimes even weeks, someone’s dreams go up in smoke and that business shuts down. I dealt with it occasionally when I WAS working, manager of a small business, and it was BRUTAL. We even had competitors posting reviews pretending to be customers, or people who wouldn’t even step foot in our doors blasting us online for something they “heard” about us. We always managed to pull through (because our regular customers KNEW us) but so many smaller businesses are not so lucky.
LOVE:
Being able to connect with, or spread your message to so many people instantly across the world.
HATE:
The anonymity of the internet. People who think they can get away with bullying, racism, stalking, talking trash, trolling, and God knows what just because no one can see their faces. Bullying is at an all-time high and I really believe that social media is mostly to blame. Sure, there was bullying and violence before social media, I’m not dumb here folks, but once social media came along now all these bullies had an outlet to share their misdeeds instantly to a HUGE audience. One who would WATCH and SHARE, because no matter your position drama attracts us like bugs to light. THEIR MESSAGE of violence and hate just got blasted around the world, and so they’ll do it again, and again and again, because they got the attention they were looking for.
Gonna wrap this up…. because if I don’t stop now I’m going to get into using social media as a political platform, and no one wants to hear my opinion on that… 😉
I’m going to quit here, because honestly, the more I write about it the more fired up I get, the more disheartened I get, and the more I want to just cut the cord to all my social media and say I’m done with it. I’m not going to do that because I DO run two businesses that depend on word-of-mouth and social media marketing to get noticed, and I DO have family and friends who live far away that I probably would lose touch with completely if not for Facebook, and Instagram, and the like, but if you only take one thing away from this post, please let it be this:
DON’T let your “connections” on social media be the only connections of your lives. DO check in with your friends, send them a message, a text. Hell, I know everyone hates to talk on the phone nowadays but call them up. Send them a card or a letter. When was the last time you got something other than junk or a bill in the mail? DON’T let your real life friendships fizzle and die because you’re too busy, or you feel like just “liking” or “commenting” occasionally is going to keep it alive. It’s NOT GOING TO. DO continue posting those cute pics of your kids and awesome vacation experiences – everyone DOES love seeing what you’re up to, but hey, reach out and touch someone in real life occasionally. You deserve friends that love you and interact with you regularly. Everyone does!
