Social media is driving me nuts

An article in the standard this week had a teacher claiming that "social media is more stressful than exams" but perhaps that's a little over the top.

Or is it?

The idea that social interaction can become a source of genuine anxiety is something that's niggling at me. Facebook is great after all. I choose to use it. The fact that I and those around me now check it every hour is surely our own doing?

The moment came this morning when I noticed checking facebook is now something I do before I'm even out of bed. It greets me in my semi-consciousness and I'm conflicted. I like feeling up to date so easily. I like stupid videos with animals. I like reading articles my friends share. But I never feel satiated. It's never enough, and without realising, this past year has been a slow and steady submission to the dark Lord Zuckerberg.

I feel a strange bubble of rage for the web, my laptop and smartphone. I feel connected, but at what price? What effect is this having on us all in the long term?

I don't want to get too nihilistic about it all. But maybe in years to come we'll be left socially inept; drones, locked away in our rooms, obsessing over celebrities, imagining a whole other reality. Then I wake up and I'm Kathy Bates and not the friendly Titanic Kathy Bates, but the Misery, axe-wielding, lunatic Kathy Bates.

So I've decided that I will make a change. (Don't be silly. I'm not leaving Facebook.)

Instead of Netflix, I think I will try to read a book before I go to bed. If I'm going to stay up 'til 3 in the morning it may as well be using my imagination rather than feeding the strange web of contempt I hold for social media.

(Except Twitter. I <3 you Twitter)

Peace out.