It's not like a have a public. Maybe if they were banging at my door, I'd feel worse and, ergo, more motivated to post something up on there here boards.
I'm going to try, I really am. I noticed two trends over the past 2017. I wrote, for sure, when it came to fiction. I really did. That part was a breeze. And so was meditation. When you wake up, every day, and attend a job where the adults talk about wanting you dead-okay, not with those words, but swinging Trumpisms around like rocks from a slingshot, the stress is increased even on simple things like, what you can eat or not eat for lunch. 2017 became a big stress ball since that fucking election. That's where it hit me. All these friends who, well, like one of them said, "my actions should speak to you, Roo, you know we're cool with your marriage."
Yet their action of voting for Trump and his neoNazi Pence would be the actions speaking to me.
That was the stress of this past year. And, to cope, fiction and meditation were the only two goals that kept me alive and kicking. The gym? I keep hurting myself, I noticed, and that kept me away from that. And food? I hate monitoring my food. But I noticed, when I lost the weight? I was better-I was a better person. I have to keep that in mind.
And add those to the ways I can deal with manifestations of stress.
Which leads us to here.
I stopped journaling. I stopped blogging. Fiction? That's glorious and wonderful. But when it came to reality? I just couldn't deal with it.
And I need to.
I'm blogging. I'm not going to say if I'm going to do this every day or once a week, because, again, such a commitment would just stress me out. Take it or leave it, I'm just announcing I'm going to try to be a better person this year.
Which brings me to today's suggested topic-
Five Problems with Social Media
I don't have any. No, really, I don't. The fact is, when I moved in 2010 to Florida, I had just started to dabble with it. I had an app on my new Blackberry and it helped widdle away the hours in queues at Disney World; but, moreso, it linked me to my past as I move abruptly into an uncertain future. I never felt apart.
But I'm also not an idea. For every good, there is a bad. I would not be a practitioner of Tao if did not see the bad and the good in all things. Here? I saw a few, but it only came about because of time and use, like cigarettes, when you can't get up the mountain anymore. I will say this, I doubt I'll stop using my social media stuff. I'll just keep my eyes open.
1. Everyone's doing it.
Everyone is doing it, basically. To curse it to the ground would mean a great many people would be cut off from the world. I know people with very specific needs, for whom social media is a boon. A place for persons who social anxiety is a bit too much; adults who have language delays but have the ability to type out a sentence or two using spell check and grammar checks. But that's the first issue.
Everyone is dependent on it. I will say, My time at the gym is my time without my phone. When I'm with my clients? Yeah, phone's away. Here? When the entire world is watching, it's hard to get away from it, even if you don't want to. Like TVs. Worse? Since we're dealing with the full spectrum of humanity, that means the same message will not yield the same results. I mean, look at 45's ascendancy. Had the nation not been staring at their screens, they might have listened to things like results, science, and intelligence.
2. Loss of Self.
I know many of my friends online from real life. And they're awesome. But what they post? That's not them. How many of them did I know supported marriage equality, yet still posted things about 45? They were jumping on their bandwagon. That wasn't them. Or was it?
It has become difficult to see the person to what they show. A person becomes a series of snippets and tweets. As every person who has become a victim of being misquoted, "that's been taking out of context." I have enough sense to pause and see what the deal is-but most do not. Social media is killing the whole individual to a series of hilarious memes.
3. We are now a Product.
My disdain for corporation was only magnified when 45 assumed power. I realized that as I sipped my Starbuck's waiting in line at Disney World. The fact is, we cannot escape from corporations. No, they aren't people. And they don't see us as such, either. But if I like a company, they have my business. I choose that.
But Facebook sells us to corporation. Google, always watching, sells our information and demographics to the highest bidder. Makes sense. We aren't people. Facebook is free, afterall. They have to earn revenue. And that means selling us out like shares of stock.
That, to me, is a problem. I should have a choice in that. Disney? Sure. Watch me buy ears again.
The choice is mine.
And Google, to some extent. They gained a lot of kudos with their fight for net neutrality. They have my information-they've learned to tailor information to find what I am looking for.
But social media has done little to encourage that loyalty.
4. Loss of nuance.
I'm lucky. I work with the Deaf, and, if you know anything about them, as a culture, they know nothing about white lies. They are blunt, direct, and straightforward. Nothing is technically wrong with that. They lack nuance and subtleties that make life a bit more bearable on the other side of the coin. But my friends who are devout followers of their faith? They don't shove it into your face; they won't even mention it in passing.
But you go to their media splash? You're going to get punched in the nose with enough Jesus loincloths this side of a Hebrew pornshop. That's not them. But they're not authors or artists. They haven't been trained to select their expression in direct paths, instead, just putting out what they feel is correct. I guess this kinda ties into my other missive, but this works more on the expressive side of things. I get it, again, because I'm used to the Deaf, telling me like it is. So I get it. But? Most don't have that safety net.
Think about vaguebooking. A family member recently posted, "at the hospital." Nothing else. Everyone freaked out. Yeah, they might have done that on purpose, to gain attention, but, in actuality, it's the lack of nuance. They should have done their usual who-what-why-when-where-how stuff for the benefits of an audience.
Fuck that, I know.
5. It's a Physical Addiction
It's obviously hitting some part of our brain. I notice, when I do go without social networking for a while, I get quiet until another hit. I also get this way without really good food. We're human. It's fun to connect to people. And the fact that there's a response with a larger audience is exhilarating.
And, like all things that feel good, addiction can rear it's ugly snarl. And most people know alcohol can be bad. We can avoid it. But our current society is so dependent on computers, let alone, social media, many young kids just don't realize the need to break away.
That's a dangerous thing.
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