You Are (not) What You Share!

The one where I de-construct our troubled relationship with Social Media, anxiety and killer Selfies

This might be uncomfortable for most of us; the idea of admitting that we are all struggling to believe in ourselves every single day when we get out of our beds. The second our eyelids part, we are inundated with information we might or might not want to consume but is pushed down our throat anyway- You boss on his 8^th International vacation this year (while you Google how to spell ‘bon voyage’) your halfwit college friend moves to Europe & inappropriately poses next to Nikki Minaj’s wax statue (while you struggle to make sense of meat ban, porn ban and your reason for existence), Dad’s uncle’s son’s daughter gets a job at Apple (and you fight for a 0.18% hike you were promised 4 years ago), random school friend gets a dream proposal from a seemingly perfect man (way hotter that your boyfriend… the imaginary one of course), best friend’s status professing love and undying allegiance to people who she met at a party (you obviously weren’t invited to).. you get the gist.

Judge Judy has spoken

It would be too simplistic to blame social media for letting us fall in the deep dark pit of anxiety and FOMO (For those living under a rock, it’s the Fear of Missing Out) There might be a small (or MAMMOTH) chance that it’s us feeding the collective anxiety monster. For every piece of information we consume, we retaliate by putting something out there, something that might not be as true as we wish it were. In an attempt to ensure we remain relevant to this unrealistic yet apparently perfect world, we continue to create virtual lives that are as different from our real lives as Sasural Simar Ka and Game of Thrones. The funny thing is that while we post stuff with full awareness of it being only half as glamorous as it looks, we refuse to believe the same for others. Even if we are giving minute by minute update of our vacation because we are too scared to admit it’s turning out boring, we are in denial that everybody else might be doing the same. Result- The Anxiety monster, first fed by our disappointment and then by others’ apparently exciting lives, slowly starts gnawing at our happiness, joy, comfort and satisfaction.  

Now don’t get me wrong, I take and post as many pictures as the next person and in no way claim to be too cool for the school of social media (Occasional stalking has been established to be therapeutic) In fact I strongly believe that there is no higher ground in social media reticence, we all have the right to be as active (or inactive) in the virtual world as we want. However, maybe once in a while we need to ask ourselves a few simple questions to ensure we are not nourishing the ugly mean monster of anxiety that’s betting on a generation of millennial out to outdo each other in a game of  ‘The best unrealistic real life on Social Media’ .

One good question can be- Am I crowding or rewarding my friend’s already cramped and overloaded mindspace? Or you can do what I call the golden ratio of sharing- 70:30. Everytime I post something on social media I categorize the information on one of the two buckets. 7 times I post something that is actually fun and genuine in its spirit and 3 times I do it because well it had to be done. Here are a few key words to help you differentiate between the two-

70 percent- Genuine

·         It was truly an #Amaze time you had (which is unlikely if you posting it while you are having it)

·         It’s important and relevant information and not following an illogical ‘plz repost’ request

·         You would actually be interested in a similar #POTD if someone else put it up (826^th picture of your pet rock is not interesting)

·         An important life event (Losing your virginity on your honeymoon doesn’t count)

·   Your viewpoint on anything you feel strongly about (10 points extra if its logical and well researched) 

30 percent- Has to be done

·         You spent above average time/money/energy for that experience

·         Excruciating Boredom.

·         Recent break ups (Everything is allowed to you except murder)

·         You look good. Really good.

*Of course then there this whole rule book about pouty selfies which is mostly DON’T POST THEM!

If the above doesn’t work for you, well it is a free country (except you can’t eat meat or maggi, say realistic things in movies or have consensual sex of course)

I have just one parting thought; Let’s exercise restraint and encourage authenticity, let’s try to starve the anxiety monster, for we don’t know where it’s going to end- from making us self important narcissists (like him) to driving extreme attention seeking behavior causing serious repercussions (like these) Let’s also try to remember that shares, likes and reposts don’t really determine our worth, our relationships and actions do.

Love,

Me

The T-shirt of truth

PS: Don’t think I miss the irony of this post as I promote it on Facebook, but then we can do with some sporadic validation. Go on then!