These days, especially now with the coronavirus, we are spending more and more time at home with less in-person contact with our friends, co-workers, and acquaintances. Almost everyone these days has at least one social media account.  It’s hard to find someone who doesn’t have at least one social media account on one platform or another.

You are almost an outcast if you do not have a social media account, it is how people show off things to their friends.  I’m not exactly sure why we love social media so much and I’m starting to think about it more and more.  I’ve always found social media interesting ever since my brother showed me one of the platforms that came before Facebook.  I thought it was cool to be able to connect with people you haven’t talked to in a while.  

I was thrilled with this platform because it is nothing like we have now with Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat.  Social media was so fresh then but it will never compare to the absolute giant that it is today. However, there is something else that I want to talk about. Way after this first platform came out, they were coming out in waves.  Social media became such a focus of people and the obsession was starting.  There were a lot of emotions wrapped in these social media postings and there is a lot of jealousy involved.

If you live a balanced life you are probably not going to as attracted to these social media platforms. 

A lot of people with busy lives do not have time to get into the deep depths of social media and all it has to offer. So, what does this mean?

We all want to be loved and accepted by our peers.  We want all this even though we only care about ourselves.  A friend of mine recently told me that she simply would rather not hear my opinion if she does not ask for it.  Think about it as if you saw one of your friends trending in the wrong direction in life, you would want to speak up and say something about it.  There are many examples just like this one.  

It seems like we only want to communicate with others through social media now.  This is because we forgot how to meet people in real life. We are too obsessed with ourselves that we forget about other people and how to form relationships with them.  Relationships are trending down just in general, and it’s because of the work that has to be put into them. You need to be vulnerable to be in a relationship and not many people are ready to be that vulnerable.  

A lack of vulnerability can be a result of one growing up in a broken home or having family issues.  

When it comes to social media, we care too much about ourselves and we’re not ready to make sacrifices and give up things from our lives.  It has gotten to the point where bad results on social media can influence how we look at ourselves.  People smile at their phones quite a bit because of something that happens on their social media. People are constantly just staring down at their phones.

People seem to have forgotten that people are the most important things in our lives and the relationships that come with that.  There is nothing that can replace human interaction, hence why a lot of long-distance relationships do not work. We care too much about secondary things and there is no one to help us get out of this rut.  

We often mistake our social media followings for our friends and that is how we measure how social we are. However, virtual contact is not even close to the real thing. Oftentimes, social media makes people even feel lonelier because you are not presenting your true self, only the version of yourself that you want people to see.  We aren’t ready to be vulnerable in a relationship.

We need to stop living a virtual life and start meeting new people and build relationships and be vulnerable!