Breaking Away From Social Media
It’s hard to remember what life was like before that little bird. My best friend introduced me to Twitter somewhere around my junior year of college and, like most newbies, I had no idea how to use it. Sure, I created a handle and a password. But, I would scroll through my timeline that consisted of a whopping 20 or so people and wonder what was up with all those hashtags.
Four years later, I reside on Twitter daily. A timeline that once consisted of following 20 online personalities has now swelled to 400. Twitter has been the best source of publicity for my blog. I’ve connected with many people I would have otherwise never known. But, like any relationship, the one I have with this social media platform is not without its kinks.
“It’s just Twitter, I don’t take it that seriously.”
It’s a sentence I’ve heard a lot in my life, but I’m not always sure how much I believe it. As much as I’d hate to admit it, words that people have said on Twitter and interactions that I’ve witnessed have burned me in my post grad personal life. Sometimes I feel slightly pathetic for nursing hurt feelings over something that was said in 140 characters or less. After all, it’s Twitter; I shouldn’t take it that seriously…right?
But, I believe in every joke, there is truth. In every word spoken (or tweeted, for that matter), there is some sort of motivation. It’s easy to write Twitter off as some meaningless Internet stage that has democratized the importance of everyone’s voice; it’s harder to take responsibility for the things we say or do and the subsequent consequences of those actions.
In that regard, I’ve learned the importance of breaking away from social media. I’m not one of those people who jumps on to Facebook or Twitter to proudly proclaim that I won’t be on it for the next 30 days—ironic, don’t you think? But, I have learned how important it is for me to personally take a breather from social media. Maybe it is a weekend where I can just vegetate on my couch. Or maybe it’s a dinner with friends where I don’t look at my phone for hours. Whatever the case, I know for my own sanity and happiness, I have to escape from social media every now and again.
There are enough inane and intangible societal pressures as is. Social media only makes the boulders of those pressures that much heavier. I am part of a generation that spends about 25 hours a week online. The world according to these platforms is pretty simple. Facebook: get married. Twitter: care less and joke more. Instagram: look pretty. All. The. Time. I could write these things off as things I shouldn’t take seriously, but that argument doesn’t work for me. And, it doesn’t have to. Instead, I just have to break away.
I ultimately have to keep faith in the relationships and friendships in my life that have proven themselves to be beautiful and authentic independent of social media. Those are the things I truly take seriously. Those are truly the connections that carry me through, not the pendulum swing of online popularity determined by some followers or “friends” or likes.
