Why I Hate Social Media (But Can’t Give It Up)

Once again, I woke up this morning and visited Facebook. It didn’t take long for me to feel overcome with exasperation. If I’m being honest, I realize I truly hate social media and most of what it stands for. Some of my best memories in the early days of social media was joining MySpace and connecting with all my fellow musicians and sharing each other’s work. It was a different vibe back then and one I actually enjoyed a great deal. Now, I would say my observations leave me feeling that it’s largely an unpleasant experience.

But as much as I now wish I could eliminate it from my life altogether, it’s actually a necessary evil for those who wish to share their creative content. And I certainly like being able to connect to close family and friends (especially those I am not able to see often), but most of our discussions are taken to private groups anyway. I try to stay focused on the people and things I feel most connected to, but it’s still difficult to navigate. The greatest challenge being how it shapes my opinions of others.

Ultimately, it seems to have become a place for people to expose all their insecurities by seeking constant validation or attempting to make other people envy them, which is often based on complete fabrications of reality. Not to mention how much exploitation people are willing to participate in for the sake of attention. And while I don’t mind honest discourse, there is far too much political backbiting. It can change the way I view people I love because often they no longer resemble the person I have come to know. Perhaps we are just too much in each other faces all the time. There is something to be said for moderation.

I simply don’t need to know every detail of everyone’s life. Truly, I don’t even understand the desire to share your private life with virtual strangers. I’m sure everyone is not dying to know where I ate lunch today, who I hung out with, or see what is essentially the modern version of my vacation slides. I don’t think I’m all that interesting to begin with, and I’m not driven to do so anyway. I realize I am in the minority here, but it’s very much beyond me. What is the drive behind all this? I have begun to suspect many people go places and do things just so they can post about it online. They seem to care more about the photo op than actually enjoying the time together.

Is nothing private or sacred anymore? It certainly diminishes the intimacy of real relationship when people are willing to share anything and everything with just about anyone. How does one feel significant when you’re so quick to give everything away without investment? It cheapens your value. Sorry, if you want to get to know me you have to make some effort. Maybe it’s not even worth it to you, but that’s how we used to determine authentic relationships from the surface ones. And it’s okay if everyone is not meant to be my BFF, but I save the best of me for the ones who are. Because it is only when people engage each other in an honest, intimiate way that sharing is meaningful. Even our opinions on hot topics are more impactful when we have gained someone’s trust and respect.

And another reason we know this isn’t creating real intimacy is that everyone is so gosh darn lonely, even the ones who appear wildly popular. I can’t tell you how many people who seemingly have a million friends express their deep state of loneliness to me. Despite appearances, consider how few meaningful relationships many of us actually have. So then what are we doing all this for? That is an important question to ask, and one I am willing to ask of myself because sometimes we just participate because it’s the thing to do. But is there any true benefit? Are a few mindless thumbs up really enough to fulfill us? Or is it possible we are substituting our ability to experience real life with a mere shadow and it’s killing us?

Now, I don’t wish to be overly judgmental, but there are some uses of social media I find undeniably off-putting. Perhaps how I engage online is off-putting to someone else, but when all is said and done, it is only important that I establish the values I deem worthy for myself. It’s taken me quite a bit of time to work through all these feelings of what I appreciate about this platform and what I actually want to avoid. And my conclusion is that social media should be nothing more than a supplement in my life — a place to occasionally engage in intellectual discourse (to learn and grow), to enjoy common interests (for inspiration), and promote my work (though I’m not very good at it). Or perhaps most important of all — to encourage others who are in need of a real friend. Just about everything else is superfluous.

“The man of too many friends [chosen indiscriminately] will be broken in pieces and come to ruin, But there is a [true, loving] friend who [is reliable and] sticks closer than a brother.”

Proverbs 18:24 (AMP)