I’m often thinking about the impact social media networks have on our society (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, twitter and so on). How do we see them? What are we expecting from them? What kind of connection do we have with all those people?
Honestly, I’m worried about the influence of social media networks on our lives because they create expectations which cannot be fulfilled. Regarding the connection we should have with our friends, I think it’s more of a destroyer instead of a builder because we always see what our friends are doing and with whom. This is eliminating the need of us interacting with them because we already know what they’re doing, so why should we ask? The biggest problem is that we are sharing only what we want to share, so we’re creating a mask which the others see. Our friends are seeing our mask, they see we’re doing great (most of the time, we’re sharing the good stuff we have in our lives) and they get frustrated because their lives suck. That’s the point where they’re trying to do stuff just because others are doing it so they can post something good about their lives. We see that they’re doing great and we’re thinking that their lives are great and ours suck so we’re trying to do stuff so we can share how good our lives are.
Most of the time, we’re not thinking about how it is the part they don’t want to share. Do you ever think how someone is feeling when that person uploads a picture of him/her smiling while drinking some wine in a fancy restaurant? We’re just thinking about how great it is for him/her to be there, but maybe that person is not feeling good, even if that’s what he/she is trying to display. Maybe there has been a fight before or maybe that person spent the last money he/she had to be there so he/she can feel good, but in reality he/she is feeling sad about spending all the money on a fancy dinner.
Because we’re mostly sharing our best, we create expectations that our lives are accordingly. We’re creating a new normality which is not real. It’s our best. We all have problems we don’t want to share (obviously), but when our best becomes our “normality”, everyone is trying to beat that. It’s not a bad thing to try to be at your best, but it’s bad when you think that someone’s best is a normal thing and when you’re looking at your life you see that you’re far from that. This creates frustrations that might lead to depression.
The problem is that we’re all looking at our lives and we’re comparing that with the “normality” we’re seeing on social media networks. We’re not realizing that the things our friends are sharing are the best parts of their lives and that there’s much more about them that they’re not sharing. That’s the part we should all be more interested in. That’s the part they need help with, and that’s the part we’re ignoring. When we’re seeing how “great” someone’s life is, we’re not even trying to communicate with that person because we’re thinking that he/she doesn’t need us. Why should that person need us? His/hers life is great. We’re below that person and we don’t deserve to talk because we’ll feel bad about our own lives.
Let’s make social media networks social again!