Like many of you, I woke up this morning, looked at Facebook, and said aloud to myself: “Oh, FUCK NO.”
But there’s more to it than that. Much more. And the more-to-it part – things I’ve been rolling over in my head for months now, honestly – is why I’m going on a social media diet, effective right now.
I think Facebook’s redesign underscores something many of us recognize about what social media is becoming, has become, but perhaps were afraid to say before. That the frenetic, multi-panel real-time streaming pop-up window multi-media environment being generated by the social media arms race going on between competing services (Facebook, Twitter, G+) has reached such a frantic pace that it is anxiety-inducing and, ultimately, toxic to those who use it for cumulative hours daily, as many of us do. I believe that, and more importantly, feel that in my own life, every day. Driven to distraction much? Unable to focus? Unable to simply BE in your life without checking one or more social media platforms and/or updating every 30 minutes? Constantly feel like you’re missing something? That “real life” isn’t enough, is somehow lacking? Yes, I know exactly what you mean. Many of us do.
We’re trained monkeys. And we’re being trained to consume this social media, just like we were trained to believe we needed a new car every three years and a new cellphone (oh I’m sorry, smartphone) every 1.5. And to me, it’s getting a bit grotesque. I suspect many of you feel similarly.
However, this is my opinion, and you are free to disagree. I’m not here to convince anyone, or impose my beliefs on you as the right or only way to see things. But, speaking for myself alone, I think The Facebook and The Twitter and The Google+ (yes, I’m going to put a “The” before each of those, just like a crotchety old lady would) are all, to be blunt, fucking with our heads. More than that, I think they are in all likelihood actually altering the way our brains work. When people joke about the “addictive” quality of social media, I don’t think they truly mean addictive, not in the clinical sense. But I do.
The psychic jolt of excitement and instant gratification received from using, say, twitter, isn’t far off from the physical one a drug user experiences. And though of course we’re not injecting chemicals in our body, we’re giving ourselves, our egos, an injection of self-importance and exposure, that has an intoxicating effect. People are reading our words, and responding to them in real time! We matter! We’re interacting! Engaging! Creating and participating in dialogue! Being validated! And that’s exciting and feels really fucking good!
But do we really believe all that?
How much of what passes for dialogue and engagement these days is really that? How much of what we try to address and discuss online would be better served in long-form, in more than 140 characters, on a blog? Aren’t we cheating ourselves, and diminishing the meaning of words like dialogue and engagement if we convince ourselves that off-the-cuff soundbites are in any way equivalent to real communication, to real, quality dialogue? Aren’t we diminishing the meaning of friendship if we convince ourselves that real connections can be forged in 140 characters or less? There is no there there – it is all ephemeral, without substance. But we’re slowly being convinced – trained – to believe that there is. We are being psychologically manipulated, like rats in the famous experiments conducted in the 1960s, to hit the lever again and again that dispenses cocaine, even if it means we actually have to stop eating to do so. We are updating and updating and getting that jolt of instant gratification, of attention and feedback, even if it means our real-world relationships suffer. This, my friends, is precisely what addicts do.
I’m writing this for me, because I think it needs to be said. I’m also writing this to announce that though I won’t be giving up social media entirely, as Hugh MacLeod of Gaping Void did, hereafter I will be studiously limiting my interactions with and exposure to it. I will, instead, be devoting the time and energy I would have spent on social media to actual writing – here, on my blog, and elsewhere. I welcome your comments and emails and long-form, substantive interactions. I want to know you, to connect with you, in real and meaningful ways. But I don’t feel like I can know any of you in 140 characters or less, not as I want to. And really, that’s how it should be. Because people are more complex than soundbites, and that complexity and substance is what I want to engage with, and put out into the world myself.
I love blogging. I love writing online. But overall, if I’m honest with myself and with you, I don’t love what the online social world has become. I miss the long, thoughtful discussions that once existed in comments sections everywhere – now barren and desolate. I prefer quality over quantity. I prefer to hear the depth and breadth of your thoughts than hear a profusion of funny one-liners. This is just who I am. Godspeed and best wishes to those of you who feel differently. But for now, for me, I need to bow out.
