Skip to main content

Unsocial Media


Unsocial Media

I did the unthinkable today. The thing that I never thought I would do. I did a thing that will, while excluding the outside world, will make me feel more involved in it. I logged out of my Facebook account. I lost what felt like one hundred pounds within a matter of seconds. What started out as a place that was meant to make us feel less alone, has only alienated us from one another. The people that are standing in front us, the people that we share our dinner with, and the people that we share our bed with have taken a back seat to things that we can’t even touch. And we can’t get enough. We crave the attention and we have stumbled upon a need to make ourselves appear perfect in everyone else’s eyes. Everyone else’s except for our own. We can’t even have a nice dinner at a restaurant without checking in to see what our friends on social media are doing. We also want to be the person who is doing it better than they are, eating at a better restaurant than they are, and just simply having a much better time doing it. Why do we need this added stress? We dress up to the nines with perfect makeup so that we can get that one perfect photo to show everyone how beautiful we are. We need to get that perfect profile picture. The truth is, my dear Facebook friends, is that your filtered photo makes us wonder why we don’t look that beautiful when we wake up in the morning. There must be something wrong with the rest of us, right? You’re seemingly happy, exciting, and beautiful life has made my life seem less fulfilling at times and your sadness has sometimes made me feel that my life is a little better.   We all have flaws but those are things that we don’t dare share on social media. No, only our best selves, our best side, and the best parts of our life. So how can something like social media make us feel connected? It is a disconnect that can destroy us. If we put the same amount of concentration on the people that are standing in front of us and truly living in our experiences, we can and will gain the ultimate connection. We cannot compete with a filter and a Facebook page full of amazing experiences. If we could log on and see the bad along with the good in the life of someone else, we would choose to stick with our own.


Kristen Hamilton

Comments

  1. Elephant's ChildOctober 31, 2019 at 11:37 PM

    I have not joined FB.
    This post reminds me (again) why not.
    I am hard enough on myself without comparisons. Artificial comparisons at that.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Single Parenthood; Friend or Foe?

This is my new journey in blogging.  As is already obvious in the title, I am a single mother of two of the most fabulous children that I know (and I don't say that because they are mine), they truly are great kids.  I not only love my children, I actually LIKE the people that they are.  I know that we all love our children deeply and those are the rules of the universe, but do we LIKE them? I started my journey into single motherhood about seven years ago.  It seems that I stumbled into the journey while blaming the seven year itch of my lovely ex husband....but now...now it seems that I am stumbling into a seven year itch myself.  Not the typical seven year itch where you look for attention from others, but the kind where you almost want to run from it.  I used to be the most social of creatures, but in recent months, I seem to want to be a recluse.  It's safer in that environment. My daughter is now 13, yes...stumbling into womanhoo...
76 comments
Read more

My son has a hero.....

My son has a hero... His name is John Calipari, coach of the University of Kentucky Wildcats, a team that my son watches faithfully.  A team that is the root of Jake's hours of basketball time in our driveway every single night and a team that has given Jake a dream.  It all started a few weeks ago when I saw a posting on Facebook that Coach Cal would be doing a book signing in the next town about an hour and a half away.  I obviously started planning right at that exact second.  Jake, my son, has been feverishly planning what he was going to say to Coach Cal, but last night didn't seem very promising at first.  When we arrived at the book signing, Coach Cal had made an announcement that he was tired and that it had been a long few weeks.  He informed the audience that this would go extremely fast, about three seconds per person, long enough for the camera girl to flash a picture.  You were to step a few feet behind him and sm...
25 comments
Read more

Single moms only lose it over ricotta cheese

People often ask me "How do you do it with two kids and a career all by yourself"? My response? I just do it!! It's not even that hard!! We do what we have to do, especially when little people are involved, but I have to tell you that it's occurred to me recently that it's the little things that send me flying over the deep end. Any big, huge life event, I can tackle with ease. I was standing in the kitchen making a lasagna for a coworker that had broken her leg. I thought that I would make her and her family a dinner and dessert to ease some of her stress. I make the salad, I make the dessert and then I proceed to gather the ingredients for the Alfredo lasagna. I realize that I had forgotten to purchase the ricotta cheese in between picking up kids from school and an academic team practice. What do you think happened? Did I get back into the car and go to the store that's only five minutes down the street?? No. I had a complete meltdown right there in the kit...
13 comments
Read more