I don’t have social media.
If you would have asked me a month ago why I didn’t have social media, I would tell you it’s because I think it is destroying the world. I think it is torturing young minds and creating a constant comparison scenario between “friends” unconsciously. I would say it is hurting relationships and creating jealousy where jealousy need not be. It is promoting actions “online” that should have never happened. It is giving people false senses of gratification.
I would tell you Facebook owns Instagram, and everything you post is being analyzed and sold, so that your online advertising is targeted for you to consume more. More. Social media is making you want more. Buy more. Be more. I would tell you social media has turned people into products. Products that are being sold. Advertising once used words, images, films to promote sales… now we use people. An influencer is a product, and a product that is being bought over and over again. I would tell you social media has created more evil than good. I still believe those things and as I type that fiercely now, I stand by all of that.
But…
I also know the real reason I stopped doing social media is because it hurt me. I have also hurt others by it. I had a dream last night, that reminded me how I had once hurt people with social media. My ex boyfriend in high school started dating someone that was my friend (but his first) when I started college. They were both in my dream, and I remembered what I had done after I found out (via social media) about the two of them. I had started posting mean things on facebook about her. I was slanderous towards her, because I was so hurt. I turned my group of friends against her and we would post things about her in our group page. I would post pictures I had with her with sarcastic captions.
Now flash to this year when I deleted it on January 2nd, 2019. I had already created a very good habit (I think) to go on only once a week. It is the day after New Years, in which I spent ALONE trying to gather my solitary self and just be OKAY. I had recently been demoted from my corporate job and was working at this shitty ass motel. I went on good ol’ instagram. First post, one of the person that I loved in college with his new girlfriend. The next one, the guy that I had lost months before with his new girlfriend. Something inside of me re-broke into many, many, many pieces. It really hurt me this time. It really hurt me. These pictures, broke me at a time when I really needed support or a hand to hold.
This hurt me enough to delete all of it. I decided enough is enough for me. I decided it wasn’t worth having anymore. I wasn’t giving much to it anyways, and it certainly was not giving to me. Looking back now, do I think it was irrational? Maybe. I still think it was right though. For me, it was right. Eventually I would have come to this conclusion. Each time I would gorge my time on social media, I felt something in my gut like what I was doing was wrong. It certainly was a time consumer. Not to mention all these images going through my brain as fast as they were, is that healthy? Is my brain equipped for all of this?
It wasn’t fair that I had to see what I didn’t have anymore. I was in an unhealthy place mentally, yes. I was very sad and hurt already, yes. Did those pictures and memories for someone else need to be in my face though? In my moment of weakness, did I also need to see that? I don’t want to hurt people and I don’t want them to hurt me with something like social media. I don’t think anyone that has “hurt” me on social media has done it intentionally either. If we all got a little more mindful though, maybe we’d see that our “sharing” could be hurting someone somewhere.
Maybe I think too deeply and feel a lot and then I put it in these words, but I know a deeper part of everyone feels this way too. I know it. I wanted to be honest about why I don’t have social media. It is because it hurt the hell out of me.
If it has hurt you too or if you’ve hurt people, it is possible to live a life without it. And it’s a deeper life, because social media lives in the shallow. Just because the world says this is what you do now, that does not mean that that is what you have to do. We all live in this world and social media is a choice like anything else. You decide what is best for you.