November Writing Prompt - Day 1 of 30

Five problems with social media 

The first problem I see is that social media takes away from physical experiences.

When we were kids in the 80s, you spent a lot of time outside and together. My first experience with spices actually growing outside was with pepper. My friend Krissy's mom had little short plants with little seeds on them, she said they were black pepper plants. I had no idea up until then that you could do that. Mom and dad grew tomatoes and cabbage and things like that, but spices? I didn't know. I was fascinated. 

Nor would I have seen it, then asked about it, had I not experienced it. If I had been on my phone with her I never would have had that experience. Nor the countless others, like riding bikes to a farm or learning to do my first cartwheel, or ice skating in my back yard or making up a soccer game where the beech trees were the goal posts or the winter of 1978, turning snow drifts into actual igloos!

Another more malignant issue is that it is so very easy to hide behind a computer screen and sling mud, and insults, and worse, right down to bullying and seeing inappropriate content. There is so much anger these days. Anger isn't new, but the one-sidedness of it all makes it seem so much more severe. 

If you had an argument when you were face to face with your friend, you might shout, and even break out into a fight, but it wasn't as easy to just walk away from them. You saw the hurt in their eyes. You saw the reaction of your friends. You understood the consequences of just giving up on this friend and you eventually had to deal with the conflict or you wouldn't have anyone to hang out with.

With social media, you can throw out your argument and just click off the device and feel like you've "won". Heck you can even block them. There is no consequence to doing so, as there are hundreds of other virtual friends, some of whom will agree with you and validate what you said. You can really polarize your group of friends to just those who believe exactly as you do. 

While going outside to play as a kid was very addictive because it was most often fun and validating, social media can be even more so. Getting instant likes from your friends who are exactly like you are, makes you feel good. And so we up the amount of time spent in search of those likes, taking pictures of everything from spiders to sandwiches. The instant validation, while lovely, feels a bit empty, and we search for more and more, taking up more and more of our time. To just have that one type of instant validation can create monsters out of us, who are not willing to do anything that takes a while to accomplish. Examples? Learning to cook, to drive, to garden, to run, to master a martial art. 

One thing that really came out during the COVID pandemic, for me, was my self image issues. There was not a lot I could control while I was stuck in the house with no way to see my friends, and it was freezing cold. It felt very much like I was trapped. One of my coping mechanisms was to first find fault with myself, and then try to fix it. I've never been a clean freak, choosing most often to cook or bake up a storm but leave dirty dishes in the sink. 

Since the pandemic, I started really focusing on cleaning. It didn't become a sickness, but it could have. I was washing dishes 4 times a day at one point. I baked more, I cooked more and the family was home more. So I had mountains of dishes compared to when I went in to the office during the day. I could have stood with a hawk eye on the sink, waiting for the next dish, so I could put everything back in its place. 

I obsessed over eating the next wonderful thing - all carbs of course. I worried about getting yeast or more flour from the store's nearly empty shelves. I tried baking my way through an encyclopedia of professional baking. All of that was exhausting, and it didn't fix the feeling of being trapped. I still felt that way. 

Social media can mess with your self image, on top of that. 

I would see one friend lose a bunch of weight and get really healthy while I was making cakes and eating them. The comparison killed my self image. I was the fatty with the chocolate cake in my hand and I had failed at the pandemic. 

I would see another friend remodeling their house while I was barely keeping up with dishes and I was the lazy chick that failed at the pandemic. Fail fail fail was all I saw by comparison.

I propagated the problem myself, by buying a raised bed and growing my own vegetables then using them in cooking. Or making intricate desserts and photographing them to my swooning friends. (For those feeling less than, while reading anything I posted, I am truly sorry. )

Finally I think there is one problem I didn't experience but I would have been just devastated if I had. It goes along with being able to hide behind a computer, but this is taking it beyond just slinging insults. I'm talking about a completely fake identity. Catfishing. 

Think about the single people out there trying to find someone, and having this "virtual relationship" with someone, only to find out they are nothing like they portray online. It would rock the very foundation of trust for me. Think about those who take it so far as to get money from these people. 

There are reality t.v. shows about it, if you look. And if you break someone by removing their trust in people, you've truly broken them. There is no where to go for solace. How can you trust anyone?

I do know that Social media, in and of itself, is only a tool. And many of us are responsible people. But it's an easy thing to let get out of hand and degrade our way of life. 

We as people in the first world who live and die by the internet, do not have real consequences when it comes to social media. There are no checks and balances, no one watching, as we delve into the taboo. 

It is dangerous only in that we scream when consequences are attempted to be put on us; 

a learned behavior with the instant gratification that social media gives us. 

My only solution is, pick your head up now and then, take a walk outside, go see a friend before it gets too cold out. And enjoy the experiences.