My Facebook sees very little action these days. No offense, Facebook, but I’m just not that into you. Sure, we had some good times throughout high school. You were my go-to for procrastination and creeping, but now I have Buzzfeed to waste my time, and I don’t really care about other people enough to spend hours pouring over their status updates and profile pictures anymore.
So, when I posted two articles on my Facebook the other day it was more for my personal amusement than for my Facebook friends. I really didn’t care if anyone read them or not. I just wanted to put them somewhere for future reference.
The next morning, I received an unexpected surprise (side note: Aren’t all surprises unexpected?). A number of people had liked and/or commented on these posts. I was elated. I, the girl who stopped caring about Facebook in 2009, had her day made by Facebook approval.
Naturally, this got me thinking about our collective societal obsession with social media. For a while, I thought we loved it because it was a place for personal expression and connection creation. Now, I realize it’s so much more than that. It’s where we go for validation. We post things because we want others to confirm our opinions and thoughts. It doesn’t matter who approves or what they approve; all that matters is that someone cares enough to agree with us. That’s got to be why the “like” button was created. It is the easiest way possible to validate someone else. We push a button to show confirm our interest and the number of people who agreed with the post in question is displayed for the world to see. I won’t lie to you. I’m always a little impressed when I see someone received an inordinate number of likes from the social media population.
The two articles I posted were about books and what it’s like to be an introvert, two things I know a lot about. Seeing that other people related to those posts in some way validated quickly my quiet nature and love for reading.
I wonder what that’s going to mean for us as a collective whole in the future. Is social media going to become our barometer for self-worth, or has it assumed that role already? Will we compare the number of “likes” we get with those of someone else’s profile? Are we less because our likes are fewer?
Facebook and other forms of social media are dangerous because they present people in the most positive light. I’m only going to post pictures of me with my friends or of me doing something awesome. Upon a shallow investigation of my profile, the casual observer would see a Roz who spends all of her free time with other people rock climbing or eating a lot of dessert. In reality, Roz is the introvert who would rather spend time alone – though I still indulge in dessert probably a little too frequently.
Basically, what I’m saying is that social media presents a skewed perspective. Comparing myself with someone else based solely on social media is dangerous and wrong. Deriving self-worth and personal validation from social media is also dangerous and wrong. It’s not reality. It’s the fantasy of ourselves we choose to project.
Roz Writes 