Social media anxiety

[Phoebes]

Firstly I tell myself this is so silly. But nevertheless here we are. I went off Facebook a really long time ago. Since then I occasionally go back and look at it. First, I feel like since not participating, I have very few real life friends. It's like fb is where they put their thoughts. If you want to participate you can read them there. But trying to reach out and call and schedule a get together or some thing seems very difficult with many.

Then there are the gaslighting posts from family. My dad said he doesn't do Facebook but then come to find out he has been posting memes painting a picture that he is woe is me so lonely and his daughters don't reach out to him. Weird since we do and he doesn't return our calls and doesn't reach out to us.

Then there is the concept that when I do reach out say on Instagram which I'm more likely to look at than Facebook, people just ignore me. These are people who have shown that they only have time for social media. So I guess all this to say, when I reach out to people and they don't respond that triggers my anxiety, abandonment, etc. When I read all the "family is everything "gaslighting from family members who are estranged or otherwise dysfunctional. I know the answer is to go off all social media but going off of Facebook a long time ago just made me feel like I can't handle it so I don't do it. Kind of like isolating virtually. I don't know. How does anyone else feel on here about social media? Is this just not for us?

[Armee]

That sounds really painful.

I don't do social media for various reasons. 1. It's way too complicated for me to figure out 2. It's scary and I don't want people to know about me 3. I simply don't have the energy the manage an online world too.

I am often out of the loop with friendships though because yes that is how they all know what's going on with each other. That's the price I pay.

[Bach]

I feel similarly about social media, Phoebes, but I can't keep myself from it because as much as it stresses me, it's too scary to feel completely cut off from the world the way I do when I stay away.

[Papa Coco]

Hi Phoebes,

I'm off social media. I didn't close my FB account, but I stopped looking at it a year ago.

Up until I made it private, my own FOO used it to spread lies and rumors and insults meant to make me feel outnumbered and gaslighted. When I finally blocked ALL of my FOO and ALL of their friends and relatives, my life got better, but not for long. Eventually I could witness how my friends' relatives were insulting their own children and siblings for me to see just like mine used to do to me.

Above all else, I value soulful connection. Social media removes the soul and just gives a brash connection. Now we can dehumanize our listeners and comfortably say meaner, and colder, and crueler things now that we don't have to look into the eyes of the people we're offending or manipulating.

Being on social media feels like being in a room full of drunks on their third drink. Alcohol and social media both turn off our empathy. A dinner party with free-flowing liquor is too much like social media. It started out kind of fun, but as we got more and more into it, pretty soon we're all just a bunch of meanspirited, shouting maniacs on our way to turning a friendly gathering into an angry barfight.

Social Media is, in my humble opinion, the most dangerous invention mankind has ever created. People use it to teach the general public how to steel cars, how to break into homes, how to access deadly drugs and weaponry. People use it to spread lies meant to draw others into their own political fantasies, hatreds and anxieties. People use it to brag about themselves.

Narcissists use it to build armies of flying monkeys to publicly attack singled out family members or classmates. I was horrifically mob-bullied at Catholic School, but I thank my lucky stars social media wasn't around then. The bullying ended when I left school each day. Social Media doesn't allow that. You can't escape social media. The bullying follows you home and to bed at night. I grew up in a suburb. My high school had 1,500 students. NOT ONE suicide. Today, thanks to Social Media's reach, children are suicide victims every single day.

I would bet that social media is responsible for the lion's share of today's rise in mental illness and suicide rates in people of all ages. I would not be alive today had I not stopped reading what my own FOO was publicly shouting oh so long ago.

[Phoebes]

Thank you all for your responses. It reminds me that there are so many angles when thinking about it, and so many reasons people do it, or not do it. Some people seem so effortless in their use of it. I think these are some of the peripheral people I know who seem to me to be functional people in the sense that they are kind, yet don't really care what anyone might say or think. Think artists and musicians who are high quality, nice people.

Then there's the family and work type people who veer off into politics and religion, some of which have a huffy, know it all energy about them. Yuck..but these would be my immediate family. I blocked my NC people long ago even.

When I used to do social media, I started off alright, joking around and sharing funny memes and whatever. My own travel pics and art. But a time or two, I felt really passionate about something and wrote something more personal. After a day or two went by, and even getting a fair number of "likes", I totally freaked out, remembering how many and who all might have seen my personal thoughts. I took it down. Then one friend posted Think about how they hate when people are so insecure they take down their posts.

Then another time a long time friend I once had wrote a blog post style piece about how she was offended by some thing I said and it was this long story that was not accurate and did not represent what I said or my feelings about it. I said some thing on there like that isn't what I said, and she replied on there oh are you feeling guilty? By the time I even saw it she had hundreds of likes and a whole list of people defending her. It was pretty silly in the first place but that was sort of a straw that broke the camels back with that one too.

The last thing I have to add is that are used to do art. I've recently started taking some classes again and one of those is how to get your heart out there, on the products and out in the world. A little ahead of myself there, but a lot of what it's about is advertising yourself on social media and how to do that. That whole concept has almost made me shut down even doing art. I know that silly I will keep doing art but that's another topic. I feel like it's so much easier to make money and make things happen in your life when you can navigate this social media thing with ease but nothing is with ease with me .