I ain’t gon’ do it!

Though Vine met its fate some years ago, you cannot deny its impact on the social media space. You also cannot deny how social media has taken over in general, almost becoming a necessity of life, such as food. And just like with food, some items enjoyed in abundance can be detrimental to our health. Physically and as with the case of too much social media, mentally as well.

Am I addicted to social media? Yes and no. I say no because I have a life offline. I work, hang out with friends, attend events, and travel. I haven’t succumbed to influencer culture. I haven’t tried to become a content creator. I do not wish to go viral. However, I say yes because I feel like I am always on there. It distracts me from getting personal things done. I’ve unsuccessfully tried to break from the big three (FB, Twitter, and IG) several times, only lasting a week or two before getting the withdrawal itch to come back. Lastly, it does negatively affect my mood sometimes.

What’s odd is, I do not even post much to be getting a “high” from “likes”, “retweets”, and “follow-backs”, I’m typically on there liking other peoples shit, reading status updates and tweet threads, lol’ing people to death, heart-eye emoji’ing people to death, laughing at memes, and looking at porn. Probably not too different from anyone else, but I feel like it has messed up my focus (i.e. not being able to read a damn book or a long article without shifting my attention) and sometimes I get F.O.M.O. because I see people out and about having fun, getting promotions, moving across country for new opportunities, and I’m just sitting there… scrolling. Literally going back and forth between the big three, like something drastic changed on one within the few minutes I was on the other.

Something else that makes me answer yes to the addiction question is that, in my quest to find fulfilling, passionate, hobbies, I’ve found myself thinking “ohh, if I do this, I’ll have something to post”… Like, WTF? I’ll be 42 this year, why I am worrying about having some shit to post on IG? You know what though… I think that stems from wanting to be “seen”. Like in the way I revere the people whose content I engage with, a part of me wants that as well. Even in my offline life, I have struggled with feeling “seen” or being acknowledged, typically from people who are not thinking about me otherwise, so why does engagement from them even matter? Another thing I need to unpack more…

So what am I going to do about this? Shit, i’on know… Naw, forreal, I am going to try to work on my disciple with the platforms I use. I should be able to read one chapter of a book without having to pause and pick up the phone to see what I’ve “missed” (most, if not all the time, not a damn thing). I do well with not being on socials while at the gym, so if I can take that same intentional focus there, and apply it to other areas, I’d be happy. Utilizing some of the built-in focus features of the apps, has not worked in the past (I’d often bypass the alert and keep scrolling), but I can give those a try again as well. With all that said, the bottom line is I want to control when and how I use these platforms, versus them controlling me. What ever I do, in terms of activities/actions, I want to do them for me, not for the Vine.