I notice, these days, that I get super flustered over the dumbest shit in the world. I feel stressed just scrolling down and reading all of the bullshit I see. I call people out over their own bull shit and I am overly sensitive. I could even call myself a troll. I like to debate with people about things I know nothing about while putting up an image that I actually care about what we are even debating. I shit post and I am overly rude and cynical. I like to get a rise out of people. I will even call myself a bully sometimes.
The catch is… I only do this shit online.
I hate social media with a passion and I am painfully addicted to it. Fuck, you can’t feel connected or get invited to shit without it because people don’t just call each other anymore. Word of mouth is almost a thing of the past and online social networking has become the solid norm. I feel it is degrading our abilities to communicate and otherwise interact in person.
I’m lucky.. I was born in 1986.. I like to say that a couple years make a big difference… I remember playing outside with other kids and otherwise socializing and living unconnected from any network or online gadget. It was just the norm. I played video games a lot but even then my Mother would make us go outside and play or take us for some outdoor activity. this was the early 1990s.
I remember computers in schools being these big blocky things that were down in an underground “computer lab” where this geeky guy named Jeff was all stoked that he had networked our elementary school so everyone could get a fuckin email at the same time!!! Back then that was a big deal. He would take the classes down there and it was hot as hell and all the screens were super old black and white Macintosh computers but he would let us play little games and show us how to send emails and open up word documents. Super Basic.
My middle school all the kids were getting mobile phones. I was late in getting a cell phone of any kind and used the landline till I was like 15 or 16, where most kids had them for several years already… By the time I had one I already felt behind the game in many ways. I noticed over 10 years ago how people were hopelessly addicted to their phones. The phones themselves quickly gained new features that allowed people to communicate faster, albeit more informally, with small chunks of text typing that is now the solid way that most people communicate.
Now our modern phones are literally small computers complete with state of the art resolution, color, cameras, and sound capabilities. Not to mention that nearly all phones have the ability to connect to the internet so gone is the days of having to reference books or look up stuff in data bases or spend time in libraries. Now literally anyone with a “smartphone” can look up, watch, listen, download, or purchase literally anything in the known world with the touch of a button. This has created a sense of misplaced urgency and stress that overall, I believe, is damaging the fundamentals of patience, self worth, work ethic, and overall human character.
Overall with the fast, edited, and impersonal communication you get a breed of people on the internet who know that they can now say anything to anyone at anytime, no matter how vile or hateful it may be. The thing is they can do it under the guise of anonymity. Their actions never get proper consequences. Nobody ever sees them but now in the world you have a whole sub culture of people who cannot let people be proud of anything, who spoil new media, who critique EVERYTHING, and who ultimately proliferate a sense that people are vile and horrible overall.
DON’T EVER READ THE COMMENTS!! FOR GOD SAKE!
If you want to ever desire to read some of the worst of the worst of human communication. Go to any honorable or even half way credible news or blog page and read the comments. !! CAUTION !! This may potentially upset you at the sheer stupidity of some people. Comments may potentially disgust you with the sheer amount of small minded, childish, ignorance contained within them.
For real though the “comments section” of most online social media are literally the spaces between the cracks in society where only the most demented, lonely, sad, racist, scared, dissatisfied, or angry people in the world ever show their true faces. It’s sad that most of the internet has devolved into a shit show of trolling and baseless bullshit articles.
One of the most aggravating things in the current social political climate is that people willfully ignore stated facts that are reliable and approved on many spectrums. It’s almost like in the year 2017 you have this battle against factual information. There are whole groups of people who read stuff (or don’t) and just kind of make up their minds about the way it is, or should be. Then they stubbornly stick to it even in the face of sheer disaster and failure. This isn’t a political post but for fuck sake our current president of the united states and the 34% of Americans that still support him have blatantly ignored factual information and instead pander to strait lies bordering on propaganda. This creates a huge paradox in the United States today where the division is further multiplied by stupid people within both sides of the argument who create even more division with their often ill informed stances and ideas. And the overall lack of accountability.. different day different post.
What I noticed when I log out and turn shit off.
Alas there is hope.
I spent anywhere up to 4 hours a day on my phone looking at social media. Sitting there.. scrolling with no purpose or reason. I scroll so much on some sites that I start to see bullshit that I saw 3 days ago. I get mad at the stupidity of the general public when debating pointless ideas. I realized my motivation and enthusiasm in real life was slacking.
So I made the conscious choice to log the fuck out. Simple. I logged out of my social media accounts on my phones and computer. I deleted the apps off of my phone altogether. What I found was pretty fucking cool. It took a week or two to not even attempt to open the stupid websites. I would pick up my phone or open my computer and open the website and start to put in the login information and have to tell myself out loud ” get off this garbage ” and close whatever device it was. It was seriously like an addiction, a fierce habit that I had to break. It took serious time and effort..
Once I was more or less over the urge to always be checking on my status, I realized I was way more productive in the daytime. I had more energy and I started eating a bit better because I was up and moving instead of sitting in one positition staring at a screen. My mood improved because I wasn’t constantly surrounding myself with garbage media and stupid comments. My motivation for music and hobbies came back and I curretnly have a bunch of projects in the work. Overall I noticed a super positive difference when I logged in to life instead of anti social medias and stupid news. My stress levels overall went down day by day and I feel I enjoy social events more when I don’t think, right off the bat, that every conversation I have is going to be with some troll.
Bottom line in real life People are pretty cool, we have a lot in common with our fellow man, no matter what race or color or background. We all fundamentally want the same things in this life. The wants of the individual may be extremely different, but the core needs of any human is not that different from the next. Food, water, shelter, security for the family, and a good place to grow up for the kids. Those things are universal among any “good” person. Despite our various life situations and circumstances, we all really want and need a lot of the same things. It’s pretty easy to have conversations in real life and usually all it takes is a smile and a simple “Hello” or “good afternoon”.
I still battle everyday with social media. I own a business so ultimately I have to have an online persona and way to communicate with people. So I am hopelessly stuck to it if i want to network and succeed. However I have taken a next step to communicate better and live in real life more. I have officially down graded my phone to a normal basic flip phone with no apps or social media. Just talk, text, and basic data. I will document the quality of my life without a smartphone and see if anything changes.
Well the main gist of this post is to possibly try to log out of stuff. Turn off the little screens. If even for a day or two. See if anything changes? Do what you want and makes you feel comfortable. I know I function better and have less stress when I try to stay clear of social media and internet. I feel a lot of people would agree if they were to try it for themselves.
As always thanks for reading! feel free to comment below.