Anti-Social Media

SOMETIMES I wonder when I’m in the throes of an endless scroll:

IF social media were a thing when I was teen, would I be plastering myself all over Facebook and Instagram like pretty much every single teen on Earth currently does?

MY head tells me “Hell no”. I mean social media exists now and I don’t smother the public with countless images and posts of myself. Yes, I do use social media and post workout pics and videos from time to time. However, most of the daily use I have on social media consists mainly of sports updates, nerd science articles, video game memes and yeah, the occasional booty might twerk across my screen, but that kind of content is impossible to avoid these days. It is what’s most popular and can bring in tons of money to the platform and it’s users. That being said, I still only tap that blue icon once or twice a day. The only platform I use daily is Facebook. I do have an active Twitter account, but I use it very sparingly and when I do, it’s for my writing. I have never even created an Instagram account, and apps such as Tik Tok will not be downloaded to any of my devices anytime soon. So my mind, using the only data it has available, believes that my social media behavior as a teen would mirror what I currently display as middle aged.

MY heart however, tells me a different story. It screams out to me with the exaggerated yelping of an excited teenager, “Yeah, we would be all over that shit!” Which is probably true. As a teen, we are unable to control all of our impulses. The subconsciously ingrained desire for attention is probably the most difficult. The biological response of being “liked” and “hearted” is something we, even as adults, have no control over. How in the world then, can I expect my teenage self to not succumb to the addiction of the pleasure chemicals that are released during this process? I can’t. The industry exploits this and right now, other than becoming a hermit and living “off the grid”, there is no escape. And so my emotional heart is more accurate, at least in this case, than my logical brain.

MY only rebuttal is that I was not like most teens. I was a loner for the most part, preferred my own company, didn’t have many friends, and I’m pretty sure I qualified for nerd status. But this is how I wanted to be and so maybe my desire to look for attention through social media would have been significantly lower than those of my peers. Maybe. The teenage mind is literally underdeveloped, making it prone to stupid mistakes, idiotic behavior and dumb decision making. There would be no guarantee that I wouldn’t have been sucked into the black hole of attention seeking like all the others.

EVEN though this is a pretty cool thought experiment, it probably sucks to be a teen right now. Can’t imagine how difficult it is for them to be happy when they are constantly comparing themselves to the impossible perfection exhibited on social media. Their brains accept the meticulously filtered, professionally lighted, expertly choreographed pictures, stories, reels and posts as reality. Our adult brains do this too. Think about this: When you see a picture on social media, and it doesn’t always have to feature the stunningly beautiful woman nor the exquisitely chiseled set of abs, it can be a simple landscape or picture of the night sky, would you be confident in your ability to discern if the picture had been doctored in any way?

PROBABLY not. The creators and coders of the platforms are aware of the brain’s inability to distinguish dreams from reality. And that is what social media posts are: small pieces of the user’s deepest desires and expectations of their own reality, their dreams of what they want life to be. It is a dreadful existence for a young mind to live though. Even now, at forty five years old, it’s tough for me. I mean, it is really stressful holding that muscle flex position in just the right pose, in just the right lighting to showcase my bulging biceps.