Living a Social Media Life

The Internet can’t give you a hug. We only eat lies when our hearts are hungry.

Do you have more than 500 people following you on Instagram or Facebook? If so, how many of those people do you consider real friends? If you look objectively at some of the photos you posted on your Instagram or Facebook accounts, how many of those photos are not telling your real story, but instead are an attempt to show the life you want others to think you are living?

At first glance (or click), spending your time on social media websites can seem like a dream come true if you aren’t confident in your social skills, or if you aren’t satisfied with the success you have had meeting other people, especially meeting that special person in your life.

Having access to information at the touch of a keyboard is making information immediately available to everyone regardless of where they live. There is so much good from the internet by bringing people together regardless of the physical distance between people. Unfortunately, social media platforms enabling people to connect to thousands of people have, in some instances, distanced people from developing deep and meaningful relationships and instead has become a game of “show- and-tell.”

What is really going on with social media is that you are comparing your life to just what is shown to you, and most people only want to show the good stuff. So, if you are reading all the positives (and some may be made-up), it can end up making you feel that you have a lesser life than others, because all your “friends” are posting photos from their vacations, their dinners, and the special people in their lives.

Of course, if you follow a lot of people the danger is that you start to aggregate all of the people into your image of what is possible in one’s life. For example, if you have 10 followers on Instagram who are featuring photos of a happy marriage you start to believe that a happy marriage is easily obtainable. If you have 10 friends who post about great successes in their careers, you start to believe that you can easily have a happy marriage and great career success. If you have 10 friends who are constantly posting photos of travel to exotic locations, you can subconsciously start to see yourself in your own movie with a great marriage, phenomenal career success, and a life of endless travel. In other words, your brain is able to collect the images of hundreds of people and combine those images into one unrealistic life possibility which can be your unrealistic life. This is one way of explaining the expression that “someone is living their life on social media instead of in reality.”

Sure, you can join them, but do you really want to live vicariously through others, or do you want to experience the joy of living your own life? Hiding behind a computer, communicating with people you often don’t even know, is not ultimately very fulfilling. You have to bring things and the right people into your life, not just read about them or “like” what they have to say.
Social media has been mostly positive, but it does have its dark side and part of that is its ability to seduce you into thinking that online you have real relationships with real people who can fill your heart. Take a look from 30,000 feet at your personal use of social media. There are women who advertise their availability for a romantic relationship by posting photos that look like Victoria

Secret advertisements on their Instagram accounts. Oftentimes, these women also post a photo captioned “My <3” of them with their “true love.” What can explain how someone can have a Victoria Secret Photo advertising their sexuality to 500 strangers, and also be sharing with those strangers a photo of themselves with their “true love?”

You don’t need data from scientific research to assess the results of certain photos on Instagram. If you are posting a selfie like the one above, just answer the question:

A man looking at my Victoria Secret selfie will have which of these initial reactions:

A) I want to meet a woman with that intelligence.
B) It seems to me that this woman and I have a lot in common.
C) This looks like a woman who could be the mother of my children.
D) What can I do to get this woman into bed?

If D is the honest answer, it explains why your Instagram account might be a magnet for the wrong kind of man. Over an Instagram chat you can’t understand if there is a connection potential like you can when the two of you are having a coffee in-person.

Studies have suggested theories for people using social media in place of in-person interaction. The 2 theories most often posited are:

• Living much of one’s life on social media requires less effort, thought and investment of time than living a life in-person
• Excessive social media users can easily build their personal world as they wish it to be because there are very few checks and balances. Thus, a social media addict can use social media to hide from the truth about his or her life thereby avoiding making changes which would require thought, effort and introspection.

Idioms

Show- and-tell…

A school activity for young children in which a child brings an object into the class and talks to the other children about it. It is used in adult situations in a negative way because it usually means showing someone something that is either unrealistic or untrue.

Live vicariously…

Vicariously means that you’re experiencing something indirectly, like when your friend’s adventure feels like your own.

Look in your own backyard…

The answer to your problems is within you, not somewhere else

View from 30,000 feet…

The “30,000 foot view” is a common phrase used to describe getting to a high enough level to see the big picture like when you are in an airplane 30,000 feet above the earth.