social media is a false reality
Everyone knows social media isn’t real. This idea isn’t an uncommon line and virtually every person using social media platforms knows almost all of it, if not all, is comprised of fabricated nonsense that only highlights the best and most marketable moments of a person’s life. Exhibit A: I posted the below photo after having a full blown breakdown freak out panic attack. So. Yeah. There’s that.
Besides the fact that social media only highlights the best moments, I make the argument that even those moments aren’t real. Images of things are just that: images. They aren’t the thing being photographed, it’s just an image. Our perception of it is what makes it seem real. That might not make total sense, so here’s an example. You’re at a party and you get your best friends together for a picture. Everyone adjusts their hair, clothes, and stance to appear a certain way. Objects and people are cleared all around you. That isn’t the party and it isn’t what was happening. Even if there is a candid image taken, that isn’t the actual event itself, but a photograph. It isn’t real.
These moments are intended to be fleeting. They’re supposed to be blips in time that we experience. So if you’re taking pictures at a party, did you ever really go? No. You didn’t go to a party, you stood in a room where a bunch of other people who were partying just so happened to also be. In warping our reality to in effect “preserve” it, you aren’t preserving anything of substance because you weren’t actually present.
That’s not to say I’m not guilty of this. If you click on the above photo or here you can find my Instagram that has plenty of images of my friends and I at different events or gatherings, taking hundreds of photos until we can find one we all like which is virtually impossible. But, I found myself leaving events and feeling like I was never there. I felt like I got absolutely nothing out of that interaction. I spent the whole night, or at least a majority of it, trying to get pictures or taking pictures for other people to post on Instagram where most people unconsciously double tap with very little attention.
I felt like I was living in an alternate reality. So, I decided to start leaving my phone at home. Dangerous? Probably. But, all my friends had their phones so I made it out alive. I found that the moments where I didn’t bring my phone, I remembered more about what was happening around me. I remembered the smells, could recall the emotions, the feelings, and the conversations. It all felt so real in my memory where other things didn’t.
If I were you, I’d try leaving my phone at home every once and awhile. IF YOU’RE IN A SAFE ENVIRONMENT AND/OR WITH PEOPLE WHO HAVE PHONES/ACCESS TO PHONES IN CASE OF AN EMERGENCY. Or equally as effective, put your phone in your bag, on silent and DND, and leave it there. Don’t take it out. Just experience that moment because you never know when something like that will ever happen again.
