Being connected between every social media platform is an existential nightmare… It’s anxiety inducing nightmare fuel. For those of you who don’t know a world without social media… allow me to paint a picture.
You used to be able to slowly distance yourself from people. You used to be able to grow as a person in a new group of friends or colleagues that didn’t know the you that existed years back. If you made a mistake years back, you could work on yourself and forget it slowly, becoming the best version of yourself through a healthy process of trial and error.
What we have now… is stagnation. Personal and societal stagnation, forever awash in an the opiate of nostalgia and chained to snapshots of ourselves carved into the marble of a digital prison these oligarchs have built to mine our data and buying habits.
People don’t grow anymore… they can’t. they’re constantly reminded of their worst selves and punished for it again and again. The worst thing you’ve ever done has become a manacle on your neck you’re forced to carry the rest of your life. So what do people do? They don’t grow… they hide, and lie, and defend. They dig in their heels because introspection is too socially expensive.
Oh and don’t get me started on never being able to escape another person… an abuser, an ex, a sociopath who fixates on you and takes joy in your suffering…
You. cannot. escape… because everything is connected online, and online is so integral to in-real-life (IRL) these days, that it means everything is connected IRL…
******************************
You haven’t thought about this enough.
What happens if everyone else is maintaining their personal connections online and you aren’t? It’s akin to social ostracization.
You may be young, in some form of schooling or at a workplace where you maintain relationships with people outside of work. But if that goes away you will quickly find that the majority of interaction offline just doesn’t exist anymore.
And without being online you also hobble your social knowledge. You eliminated yourself from the zeitgeist.
*****************************
Especially with how normalized social media is today. It’s changed and morphed things into what they are today. Literally. All the way up to how we talk and our lingo. Before social media and texting, nobody said “Rizz” or “Bruh” or “Smh” or any of that and theres so much more words we use today because of social media. For most people the only way to understand this language is to hop on the social media train.
64.7% of people in the world nowadays use social media. Yes, you can just not go on social media and live your life, but it won’t be normal. You’ll definitely feel alienated when people around you are talking with lingo you’ve never heard of. Or if all your friends and family are on social media and it’s the only way to stay in contact with them.
I can tell you I personally deleted Snapchat, Instagram, Tiktok, all that bs about a year ago and I’ve lost contact with lots of friends and now I really only have my household family and my girlfriend. When it comes to friends and fitting in, I definitely feel alienated sometimes. But in the long run, it’s probably better that my brains not getting fried by social media all day everyday anyways.
@EliLane-v4i