Have you ever loved something so much that you almost hate it? Or you love it for a while and then things turn sour?
Well, I’m in a relationship from which I cannot break up, a relationship bordering on abusive. And of course, I could never leave. It’s my connection to the world, my lifeblood, my career. But with each passing day, I’m collecting more reasons to despise it.
When social media began in the early 2000′s, I thought it was downright clever. What easier way to connect, reconnect, and share with others? I loved it. And perhaps that’s where I went wrong. Because once you slide the bar away from indifferent, in any direction, you are setting yourself up for frustration and disappointment.
Much like love itself.
I’ve been in this relationship for a while now, and I’m just not feeling the same as I once did.
(Photo credit: renatomitra)
I’ve been granted the righteous opportunity to watch others’ successes and failures, witness families created and destroyed, babies being born and grandpas passing away, and sometimes I wonder whether I deserve that. At times, I wonder whether I’m truly privy to the rushing cascades of information perpetually pooling at my feet.
I’ve seen people transform from my real-life, flesh-and-blood friends to ridiculously (and narcissistically) annoying individuals with whom I’d prefer never to interact again.
Social media makes you love the human condition and hate it at the very same time.
We’ve gotten used to everyone – from the neighbor across the street to the kid you shared a bus seat with in third grade – in our faces at all times. And social media just has an uncanny ability to exponentially amplify others’ insecurities, shortcomings, and grating behaviors.
Moderation has become extinct. Sure, you can block, unfriend, mute, or otherwise hold yourself apart from that which nips at your soul, but let’s be honest here: Eventually everyone would make that list. Eventually, the cute puppy next door will bark and bark and bark until you fantasize about punting Fifi (bless her little heart) across your development. Eventually, the way your colleague slurps his morning coffee will render you homicidal. Eventually, people tweeting about vaginas gets old.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Social media is my number one source for cat pictures, camaraderie, blistering commentary about all manner of entertainment, and, well, poking fun at social media. I’d truly be lost without it. But the noise, the noise, is sometimes deafening.
So what do you do? Unplug? How does anyone working or living in today – in the right now – unplug? I know, there are ways of doing it, like moving to Fiji or the Moon, but is that practical? Is that practical when most communications take place via email or text, billing and bank statements are sent electronically, and everything you cherish is out there as well?
How do we temper being such a large part of the relentlessly whirring machine that unapologetically permeates all our lives? How do you live both inside and outside the bubble? I don’t know.
What I do know is when it gets to be too much, I have to step away. When I’m pelted by Buy My Book! Click My Link! Vote for Me Once A Day for the Foreseeable Future! Look at My Dinner in Several Stages of Preparation! Congratulate Me for Going to the Gym! Behold the Details of My Dysfunctional Relationship! Look at Me in My Inappropriately-Sized Cartoon Character T-Shirt!, I have no choice but to look away, one, because, I hate to say this, I don’t always care, and two, because my reliance on social media is making me hate the people about which I was once fond.
There will be annoying days and there will be, well, less annoying days. And in the business of blogging, social media, or life in general, there will be days you wish you could just stick your head in a book and your hand in a bag of chips, or take off to drink in some fresh air and sunlight. The trick, in this grossly immoderate world, is to find and claim your space and to set limits.
A wise man once said that you’ve got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, and know when to run.
Heeding this advice might just keep you from losing your shi(r)t.
