“Social” Media?
A few days ago I decided to quit the curse of social media, and I feel a lot better for it.
When facebook, twitter, etc was created, I eagerly created an account, but very quickly decided it wasn’t for me. Over the years I have created many pages and accounts to promote my projects and work, but trying to get followers and likes was a full time job! I kept wondering what the point of it all was!
“You need a social media presence” declared most of my advisors, so I hurriedly recreated my pages every time I deleted them! This has been going on for years. At one time I had over 4000 “friends” although I didn’t know who 99 percent of them were.
People occasionally like my photos and posts, but I was still thinking what a waste of time it all was. Too much effort for very little reward. Accounts. Deleted.
In case you think I am just complaining you’d be right!
Last year I created my final masterpiece “The Ariana Project” and once again set about the lengthy process of creating multiple accounts, countless pages, produced engaging video and text content (it wasn’t very engaging), and prepared posts to appeal to everyone who visited to gimme a like!
All that work so someone could click a little thumbs up button and brighten my day… How sad am I?, I thought. Last week, after being recommended countless money making schemes, and prank/comedy videos, I realised that enough was enough…
Some might say that Social media has empowered a new generation of activists and enabled people from across the world to share stories/news of worthwhile topics, in my honest opinion, most of it is mindless drivel, the kind of content any thinking parent wouldn’t share with a 5 year old less it turns their young minds to mush!
I could give many reasons why quitting Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/ TIkTok or any other screen based “social engagement” is a good idea, and banning yourself for life is the best solution for you and the wider world… but I’m not going to .. Ok, here are a few..
- The constant scrolling for content is addictive and creates separation anxiety when not scrolling for content
- Arguing with people in the “comments” section of a post is not beneficial to your well being, and creates a negative state of mind in you and the people you are arguing with
- Some social media groups (including private forums) have the potential to breed extremism of all kinds, and can engage you in ways which may be detrimental to your psychological and emotional health.
- Comparing photos of your friends to see who is more beautiful is
- Social media can foster feelings of jealousy if you see friends doing “better” than you.
- It won’t help you improve your spelling or your language skills.
- Scrolling Facebook etc uses a huge amount of your energy and time, which could be better put to use engaging in real social environments.
- Social media companies use massive, and I mean massive, amounts of energy, through the use of global data centres running hundreds of thousands of servers, transmitting billions of pages per minute, using data networks.
- Social media companies only priority is to make money, lots of it, not provide you with a “connected” experience
- Signing up to “free” services means you agree to them tracking you and using your information to serve up advertising… You don’t like it when your government tracks you!
- Not being on social media creates a feeling of missing out, like you’re not part of the in-crowd.
I could go on…
Mainly Social Media shows humanity at it’s best; Thoughtless, argumentative, manipulative, exhibitionists desperate to be liked… (Ooh I LIKE that one… Gimme a thumbs up for being clever.)
And because for all the great marketing that surrounds it, it is ladies and gentlemen a load of old horse manure!
Feel free to argue with me in the comments below. LOL as I think people used to say.
If you would like to examine this topic in more detail .. I urge you to click this LINK (no cookies or trackers here! just a little bit of thought provoking reading) The topic is “corporations” from The Natural Mind – Waking Up by moi-meme!
Bye for now.