Second Thoughts on My Social Media Experiment

It has come to my attention that of the 3 social media platforms I talked about earlier(Snapchat, Facebook, and YouTube) the latter 2 are not really social media in the most candid sense for me.

I barely ever communicate through those two mediums (except for the rare occasions of comments on my YouTube videos or Facebook messages about the Physics lab.) However, I do confess that these are the two mediums on which I spend the most time (YouTube wins out by a landslide, by the way). So what is going on here? Well, the answer that was fuzzy to me is now clear as day: I am the one wasting my own time with frivolous social media and not paying attention to my friends enough. The statistics prove it! I have a whopping 398 "Facebook friends". How many of those do you think I talk to IRL at least once a day? Probably less than 15. I have an astounding 81 subscriptions on YouTube. How many of those do you think are my friends' YouTube channels? 4. And 2 of them have zero videos posted.

I think the answer is clear here: I am cluttering my own life with superficial, irrelevant muck that is sucking my free time dry. These aren't social media sites. They are black holes of solitude and a straight path to a wasted life.

Now, I've been giving Snapchat a bad rep, but as it turns out, Snapchat is the unsung hero. I have a mere 13 friends on Snapchat, and I have talked more with acutal friends over Snapchat in the 2 months that I have had it installed than on Facebook in 2 years.

So yeah, my problem is myself and my lack of moral character which would allow me to close that tab tab and get some actual work done. There is a silver lining however: I am my own problem, so I am completely capable of solving it independently. I am promising to work on it.

Bye-bye Facebook and YouTube. Snapchat can stay.

3 Lessons I Learned About Social Media

About a couple months ago, I dived deeper into social media. I was very aggressively (but not violently) convinced into making a Snapchat account. Facebook is in my bookmarks bar. And YouTube is basically my home page. (And though YouTube isn't necessarily a traditional social media platform, it is still kind of a "social" "media" "platform" when you think about it.)

I came into social media with the intent of having easier communication with friends and to be more in tune with the lives of my peers. I though that since I was just a finger tap away, I would be invited to more IRL hangouts and events. 

This has not been the case. Now, to be clear, I don't blame this on any of my friends. It's foolish to think that just because you are "there" you will automatically be likable and people will instantly invite you to their occasions. C'mon let's all grow up shall we? (I'm looking at you, 3-months-ago me).

Instead, I did see that my friends were indeed going places and having a good time. My hamartia was in the interpretation of these social media posts. Think about it: these clips are just a couple of seconds. They capture nothing about the overall experience that your friends were attending. It's like coming to a fireworks show with one firework. You see the best razzle-dazzle but you don't see the rest of everything. So, lesson number 1 : Your life is not less fun just because it SEEMS like everyone else's life is fun.  Instead, I have noticed that the level of fun I have at any given time is exactly directly proportional to how much effort I give towards having a good time. (Go figure.) Now this isn't as hard as it seems. Instead of looking at social media and trying to see if you are doing the most exciting thing out of all your friends, put down the phone and just open your eyes, I guarantee that you will feel better about yourself if you just take a moment to appreciate your own surroundings. It has worked for me, and it will work for you. (That last sentence sounded like I was advertising a skin cream instead of giving life advice, haha.)

Furthermore, once, I did go to a party with some friends. There was music,dancing, food, talking, and friends. Word of warning, I do not like dancing very much. Especially loud music and a lot of jumping and hand motions. Not for me. And so when I was at this party with all of my friends, I was dancing just like I had seen them in my social media feed. But, it didn't feel fun. I was just jumping and thinking, "This is not something I derive fun from." Instead, when we finally sat dawn to talk and chit-chat, I had a blast. The times I enjoyed most were when I was doing what I considered fun, not what my parents, my friends, or society thought what fun. So lesson number 2: Fun is very subjective and just because your friends are having fun doing one thing doesn't mean you will have fun doing it. And this can be difficult to come to terms with especially when the activity at hand (dancing in my case) is generally thought of in society as fun. It's discomforting to think that so many people like dancing and I do not. People have looked at me strangely and questioned my opinion with puzzled faces, but that hasn't changed my position. Thus, social media puts us at odds with ourselves, and that is not a good thing. 

Lastly, I also noticed that as I was sharing my life, my overall attitude toward an event was correlated to how much social media attention that post received. For instance, I coded up and awesome new solution to a problem on Codewars (excellent programming practice resource, by the way) and posted it on my Snapchat story. There weren't that many views, and nobody asked me about it later. But, later when I casually posted a picture of me at lunch, I got more views, and a few people even told me that it was a nice picture! The nerve of those people! The interests of my peers did not match up with my personal interests. That is okay, but what was totally wrong was for me to change my lifestyle based on their "scoring" of my activities. So, lesson 3: Don't change your lifestyle just to suite the attention of your friends. Real friends will respect that you have personal interests and inquire you about those interests. 

So, after careful consideration, I think that it would be good to see the other side of the story. I will now engage in a "social-media fasting" to see how a complete void of social media will affect my happiness, my productivity, and my fun.

P.S. Thank you so much for reading my muses! We are almost at 1000 views, which is a landmark I would never even have hoped for. I know that my readers are a very small group of close friends and the occasional accidental visitor, but regardless, I would just like to say THANK YOU so much for reading my blog. I hope to keep providing you with quality content and to create meaningful conversation with you all. =)