Don’t be fooled by the perfect worlds found on social media
■ Has the time arrived to introduce a ‘Delete Social Media Day’?
These shiny platforms arrived to us via companies that never had core values at the centre of their mission statements but rather one goal: lining their pockets with coins of profit.
We’re just the middle men and women, the puppets needed to chisel open Pandora’s Box and let the money-making happen for our masters with their strings.
Along with that has morphed a twisted dystopian online community, a community we find ourselves stuck in and often addicted to.
There are the odd desires to share photos of intimate moments, strange status updates telling the world you happen to be in a queue and then there are the staged photos, the ones edited and perfected. There is no such thing as perfection.
There are also the happy postings of perfect families and perfect meals and perfect everything, when these are simply moments extorted and posted to make the poster feel good about themselves.
It is as if they were exerting some sort of chest-beating dominance within this realm, while the sightseer is left asking: “Why can’t I be like that?”
No one can be like that because no one is like that. This online world isn’t real.
Following on from all this sharing are the likes and egopleasing comments, the ones the poster decides means she or he is liked, accepted and therefore socially included.
If someone wants to meet people and be included and feel wanted, or is in need of validation in the world, then step outside your front door.
Join a local club, go for a walk, meet your neighbours, volunteer within your community. And if you are unable to leave your home, join an online forum.
Such inclusion will bring far more positivity than any posted picture or set of boastful words can and will ever do.
I used to have Facebook and Twitter in my life. I deleted both.
Years ago I was diagnosed with a debilitating illness, one that’s left me house- and garden-bound for the majority of my time. At this new beginning, I thought social media could play a role in my contracted world.
And so I thought and assumed social media could be a positive. It wasn’t.
Like everything there were exceptions; yes, I met some wonderful patients who understood my condition and could empathise – but I also had access to those same patients via an organisation I joined. E-mail and text messaging allow me maintain contact.
When I realised this, I had to ask myself what exactly social media was doing for me.
The answer was simple. Nothing. Every time I logged on, I saw postings from other patients and was constantly reminded of my illness.
I didn’t need reminding. I live with it, I get it.
I live within the bounds of the real world, where I glimpse neighbours from my garden or garden bench and exchange pleasantries, where visitors and visits bring me news and where e-mail and text messaging do exactly what Facebook and Twitter pretended to do.
Marie Hanna Curran Ballinasloe, Co Galway