Social Media Syndrome

When the mother of all social media (Facebook) first launched, I was at university. It was all about procrastination, writing meaningless messages in seriously cringe-worthy slang, and posting three albums of 60 max photos about that one night out, which thanks to the “on this day” feature, none of us can ever forget. Now it’s all about tagging friends in vaguely related memes, following LadBible (not just for lads) and posting just the one photo you think will credit you with the most likes. So what’s changed in the last 10+ years for social media? In my opinion what essentially started as a method of sharing memories and staying in touch, is now a well positioned smokescreen for what is actually happening in everyday lives.

I love social media. Let’s just put this out there from the get-go. I don’t use many, but Facebook and Instagram are my vices (with an occasional snapchat) and I will check the app at least a couple of times a day. It doesn’t matter how busy my day is, it’s almost engraved into my daily routine. Whist Neil watches YouTube’s top 10 things being crushed clips on a Saturday morning, I am catching up with what my Social Media Circle (SMC) got up to on their Friday nights, along with posting my own version. I am probably one of few who would admit that I find it entertaining when an older relative comments “Hi, how are you, I am fine. Ok thank you bye” on a completely random photo, often from months ago, or when a close friend meets a long lost acquaintance. It makes me happy, plain and simple.

Now, in order to maintain my street cred (which, let’s be honest, is already on a downward spiral), I could play it completely cool and say, I barely use it, and it barely matters what people think of my posts, but who am I kidding?! In my eyes, anyone who actively posts anything on their social media, wants it to be seen by other people, and therefore wants to send across some sort of message. Now this may hit a raw nerve with some, who believe their occasional airport check in or picture doesn’t allow them to fall into this category, but let’s face it, it does. Those who actually don’t care don’t use it. For me the categories fall as simply as that.

Social media essentially details the joyous occasions in a person’s life, almost like a happy place journal, which you share with friends, family and in many cases strangers (a bit like this blog). Social media brings out the wittier, more charming and artistic side of individuals, the aspiration of the person you want people to believe you are.

Therefore whenever I hear someone say, “I don’t often use social media, as I don’t like everyone knowing what I’m doing”, I chuckle, as just because someone posts something on social media, doesn’t mean you know anything about their lives, except what they are allowing you to see. Personally I would never dream of posting a miserable message or picture on my social media feed, because I wouldn’t want people to think my life was anything other than perfect (I mean come on, who’s really interested in hearing that I woke up at 2pm and did nothing but watch Breaking Bad all weekend), and that is one of the largest drawbacks of social media, this fictitious role of perfection everyone is trying to play.

People are constantly comparing themselves to others in their SMC without even fully knowing it. This is because in this day and age, we feel like we know people from their online profiles. I know people who will talk about some of their SMC as though they are friends (probably like I do about the cast of Made in Chelsea or back in the day, One Tree Hill), telling me what that person did on the weekend, and you’ll never guess who they met, despite not having actually had a conversation with them in what can be years. The conversation will generally go along the lines of “you’ll never guess what so and so did this weekend? I’ve wanted to do it for ages, it looked amazing, we should definitely do it soon – they had so much fun” – which is then followed up with you going, having a mediocre time and then wondering what the whole fuss was about. But not before tagging yourself into said place or putting up a picture showing you having the best time.

Needless to say no-one knows about the horrible manager making their day to day life hell or the struggles of going out on a Saturday night in hope of finding “the one”. I credit my SMC (or atleast those taking the time to read this) to know that all those photos tagged #squadgoals are just a split second of a much longer night, and the likelihood is that following the photo everyone would have dispersed back to their safe corners. However, I still feel like plenty of people would see a picture such as this and either have a twang of jealousy (“why don’t I have a squad that people want to be”) or go out of their way to go one better. Essentially a game of one-upmanship to make themselves feel better by pushing others down (I would need a whole new blog for THAT topic).

“But you said you love social media, why are you writing so negatively about it?!” Okay okay, let me tell you why I love social media.

Imagine that morning commute to work, where the last thing you want to do is make small talk with a long lost acquaintance, but despite your dodges and ducks you end up next to them on the train carriage. You hope and pray that the conversation will flow for long enough for you to reach your destination, without too many awkward silences. Now if you’re as social media active as me, you can quickly rack through the useless information to find some common ground to fill the awkward silence.

Having recently relocated, I have found myself going back to the basics of using it to stay in touch with people, and in new ways, for actually meeting people. I have honestly made friends through social media since being in Singapore, something I had never imagined possible before. I reckon this has got to do something with being removed from your comfort zone, and a willingness of having the embarrassing "be my friend" chats.

There is also an element of entertainment when you have accidentally on purpose been stalking a friend of a friend (Online Stalking 101: Do not accidentally like a photo from 3 years ago, when scrolling #badtimes) and then you meet them for the first time in person. You obviously act interested in all that they tell you, but in that brain of yours you’re either zoned out as you already know most of this information from your investigations, or you’re silently calling them out on the bull they’re feeding you – all whilst smiling and nodding politely. It really helps build judgment of character!

In all honesty, the biggest appeal to me about social media is the fact that it acts as your memory box. It may not be as retro and tangible as those we had in high school (mine’s still hidden somewhere in my parent’s house), but it’s the digital equivalent. Imagine how nice it will be in another 10 years time to look back and see what made you happy now, where you went, who you met, what you did. Not all of us are creative enough to keep a scrap book, and not all of us have the memory of an elephant. Sometimes all you need is a little reminder of how good you had it, and to focus on the positives. Whilst social media can very much turn into a popularity contest over who got the most likes (2-0 to Neil currently), it’s up to an individual to decide how they want to use it in their lives, and the impact they allow it to have. And for clarification, my life is by no means perfect, but I am happy and content and quite enjoy documenting that, and that is why I wrote this post.

Love it or hate it, social media is a powerful tool and it’s here for the long haul. I say embrace it!