My Ironic Battle With Social Media

I love irony. The very definition of the word irony is: a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often amusing as a result. So please know that the irony of this blog post, which will be posted to my social media accounts, isn’t lost on me.

So here’s my dilemma: I have an ongoing battle with social media. We live in a society where everything is geared towards it. Like us! Favorite us! Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and whatever else will be popular in 5 minutes! This is the world we live in. The problem being, the more “social” we are, the less we actually interact with each other because the interaction is not genuine.

It is rude that people are forever buried in their phones, that being said, I work in a profession where we are constantly being told to post everything we do to our social media accounts. So there we are, interacting with the public, buried in our phones trying to post everything to our social media accounts. It’s embarrassing. The irony is not lost on me.

Before I get labelled as a grumpy old man who wants social media to get off my lawn, I completely get the upside of social media. I love the fact that I can get instantaneous news on my favorite sports team or band or follow what’s going on in a big news story in real time or have a better connection to a family member who lives far away. You need to know the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow? No problem, the definition is at your fingertips. Unfortunately, it has also given us a dirty window into the unapologetic hatred of the Neanderthals that we share this wonderful world with.

Social media can be a fantastic thing, I just think we need to step back a bit. Live in the moment. When you go to a concert, watch the concert with your eyes instead of trying to videotape it. Are you seriously going to go back and watch that 40 second clip of blurred lights and shitty sound? No. No you won’t. Just enjoy the moment. Don’t film your child laughing, get close and laugh with them. When waiting in line, talk to a stranger instead of checking Facebook for the 10th time. Stop taking selfies. Seriously, nobody needs to see another picture of your face doing the same thing as the picture of your face you posted 5 minutes ago, and for the love of god, we all know what a hamburger looks like, you don’t need to Instagram it. Stop throwing out hateful, racist, mean comments on Twitter. We know it’s lonely in your parent’s basement but find another hobby because being an asshole isn’t helping anybody.

Spend 30 minutes less on social media each day and go enjoy a hike. Sit by a lake and read. Take the dog for a bike ride through a forest, build a fort with your kids. The world is a beautiful place, go explore it.

In conclusion, social media can be a useful tool, but let’s be careful that it doesn’t completely take over actually being social with each other because that would mean Alanis Morissette would have to write a sequel, and ain’t nobody got time for that.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go post this to my social media accounts. Trust me, the irony is not lost on me.