Social Media Mostly Just Makes Me Feel Sad For So Many People I Grew Up With

There was a time I reveled in the novelty of Facebook. Mainly just because I enjoyed having an outlet to say outlandish things on, for pure entertainment value. I’ve been on Facebook for almost ten years and have grown up much since the day I first logged on. I don’t creep on any of my exes pages and while I wish them well, I have no real interest in their day to day lives. I no longer take subliminal and subtle jabs at anyone via my status update. You’ll find no passive aggressive posts from me. In fact outside of the occasional shared link, you won’t find much from me on Facebook at all, as of late.

The more I think about it, it’s probably in part because the amount of time I waste on the major social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram is little to none these days. They’ve become a toxic wasteland of negativity and full of people who are not only living in but actively promoting their own delusions and destruction as well. Five years ago, I was really no different. If I wasn’t posting my own, I was relishing in yours. The plain and simple truth is, I have better things to do today than get wrapped up in the opinions, drama and grandstanding displays of others in the court of public opinion.

Once in a blue moon, I catch myself unconsciously and mindlessly scrolling through my Facebook news feed. I’m usually stopped dead in my tracks by one of two things. Either a selfie of someone I went to High School with, who drugs and life itself has transformed into a shell of their former self — one I hardly recognize — or a barely coherent rambling of a status update from some childhood friend of mine. One that so clearly demonstrates just how far gone they are from the person they once were. Both have a tendency to just make me sad, so I close the app and go back to reading. And while I may feel sad for them, please don’t confuse that with feeling sorry for them. We all make our own choices and lie in the beds we made.

I understand how some of this could come off as sounding self righteous and superior but nothing could be further from the truth. My interests have just changed drastically over the years and so have I as a whole. Posts that used to just annoy or anger me now have a way of coming off as cries for help. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not some newly transformed being who’s achieved spiritual enlightenment, I’m still plenty annoyed by much of what I see on social media. Which to me, is just another reason to frequent it less often.

Even old posts and pictures of my own that once brought on feelings of nostalgia have a tendency to just nauseate and embarrass me. I’m mortified at the thought of sharing them, as Facebook so boldly suggests I do on the anniversaries of when I originally posted them. They only serve as a reminder of the years I spent consumed by my own rage and absorbed by my own self centered existence. I don’t run from my past today, I just don’t live in it either.

Social media is a wonderful tool and that’s how I choose to utilize it today. I use it to catch up with old friends I still have things in common with. I see people I went to grade school with go on to become parents, get married and live what appear to be truly happy lives — and nothing makes me happier for them. Social media is basically my only outlet for marketing my writing, so I’m still here and forever grateful to it, if for only that reason. I’ve certainly had my fair share of fun on it. However today, it seems to do little more than depress and dampen my mood. As sad as a realization this is to make, I can’t help but feel I’ve not only outgrown it but am that much better off for it as well.

Related posts:

When project managers take the decision to go for Excavation in Nashville TN rental it is normally done after carefully considering the needs of the project at hand as well as any project with…

Find out which are the hottest tools for testing software in 2021, from unit testing to end to end testing.

The GoChain Foundation’s mission is to promote the long-term success of the GoChain public blockchain network and the GoChain ($GO) token. This process includes the continuous improvement of our…