Social Media Rants

Last week I set a habit to keep my phone in another room during Reading Time (if I am on the couch with my book, it's Reading Time). I love getting lost in a good book, but I had found I was grabbing my phone now & then to look at something legit (What does the Salt Lake City library look like? Where in Alaska was John Muir?) and then losing endless buckets of time down the rabbit hole of various social media apps.

By throwing away my phone during that time, which is about an hour each night if life is going well, I have learned how much time I was wasting, and how much I don't miss it. I like seeing details of my friends' lives, but most of the time, that's not what I'm getting. What I'm getting is truly fucking obnoxious bullshit: political and religious rants, not-funny memes, endlessly shared links for no discernible reason, crap I would never choose to see, but is cluttering up my view. And that's AFTER I have his all the obvious weirdos, narcissistic jerks, and relentless ranters.

But mostly, the fitness posts make me want to scream. I follow many fitness peeps on IG, via my employer account, that makes me want to reach through the phone and punch them. There's a dude who constantly posts his crazy yoga poses that are unrealistic for 99.99999% of people to even consider, which frankly makes them completely pointless - but he likely thinks he's being inspiring.

One woman in particular steadily shows vacation pictures and selfies professing perfection, even if they explicitly say shit like "I have such awful bags under my eyes!" (while standing so that we can see the lights of The Big City behind her) or "It's so hard to share a 'before' picture!" (that displays better abs than me at my smallest) or mindless quotes about loving the simple things in life as she stands on a beach in paradise. I am positive she means well, but she has absolutely NO FUCKING CLUE that she comes off horribly narcissistic because she has absolutely NO FUCKING CLUE how far removed her life is from the masses.

I can practically track the change in my mindset when I see these kinds of things. I have a critical eye that sees the bullshit, yet I feel myself asking why HE can bend so easily, why SHE has such wealth, why didn't I get the kinds of genes that mean six-pack abs? LIFE IS SO UNFAIR, YO.

And yet, fuck that, I love my life, when my mind is on straight. The problem is that these sorts of things incessantly warp your view, your thoughts, your beliefs, until you are a changed, miserable-by-comparison person.

DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN.

And don't be part of the problem!

This Girls Gone Strong post is a far more moderated take on social media. It asks the right questions to help ensure your life is enhanced by social media, not worsened. It is intelligent and well thought-out, unlike my rant above.

https://www.girlsgonestrong.com/social-media-trap/