I have a love and hate relationship with social media…Am I alone in this?
I definitely follow mainly Facebook. I can’t keep up with all the rest like Instagram, twitter and the many many more out there! But every time I see Facebook it completely depresses me; everybody else seems to have a waaayyy cooler life than I do. I know, I know they are only pictures and behind those pictures can be a whole “Rosa Salvaje” soap opera (very dramatic Spanish soap opera) but still the images that I keep in my head are all the happy ones being posted. The ones with the extravagant lifestyles, happy wedding pictures, happy kids eating lettuce and carrots, happy moms or friends that I know get together and look like they are having so much fun with friends and family members. I see friends that I grew up with flying all over the world and portraying themselves as fulfilled beings with successful careers.
Then you have all the different specialty groups pertaining to clothes, diapers, environment, mom groups, college friends, cooking clubs, etc. And businesses and blogger FB pages (like my sister and myself) And we can’t ignore the dramaaaaa and pretty much the gossip that happens in some of these groups. I have to say, it is to a certain point entertaining but I don’t think it is right to laugh at those dramas because they are actually real (real humans with hearts, family, drama and pain), not some rehearse show like on TV.
I often watch these videos posted on FB that portray how our society has become so dependent in social media, internet and on the phones, iPads, lap tops, etc and how we ignore the real things in life like our kids riding the bicycle for the first time, or friends passing by. How social media has actually made us antisocial. Funny thing is that these videos are popular because they are shown through social media channels…mmm… the same ones that they are criticizing. It’s all part of the plan, I guess….Truthfully, I don’t deny that my eyes now are more focused on the cell phone (with all the different apps) than before the cell phone existed. It is indeed possible that social media and the internet may play a role in people becoming somewhat antisocial. But… you can’t stop technology.
The speed to at which our whole world is advancing and leaping to the “future” is insanely amazing. The kids of this generation are going to grow up very differently than the way we grew up. Is going to be a new experience for all of us. There is a worldwide shift of the way parenting is going to happen, healthcare, business, school, etc. It feels very overwhelming, but our brains are changing and asking to be constantly stimulated with instantaneous answers to questions (thank you to the internet). We now know in a matter of seconds who won the superbowl 10 years ago, where was Frank Sinatra born, where is the closest Starbucks, what is the treatment of impetigo, and so on. The other day I went to an acupuncturist, as I lay down with a few needles in my body and lights off and soothing music I immediately wanted to reach for my phone. It was like my brain felt that I needed to be “learning” something, every minute. I couldn’t just lay there, you know…boring.
Of course I didn’t reach out for my phone…I had needles in me 😉
In the future we are going to have a whole new set of diseases, maybe tumors caused by radiation from electronics. People may develop a whole new set of eye problems and there may be more need for eyeglasses, contact lenses and younger kids with eye problems. New issues with posture and musculoskeletal problems due to the way we use electronics and the posture we obtain. But at the same time cures may be very different, surgeries may not require cutting, radiographs may be easier to take, maybe there will be no need for antibiotics instead we can be cure with targeted lasers. Psychologists are going to have to learn to counsel about how to deal with electronics and social media; who knows…
We can’t stop it. It will happen and we just have to adapt, learn, keep up. Even pre schools are using technology to teach a lot of things to 4 year olds. It is the way of learning now a days. So, in other words; instead of getting upset at social media or the world wide web, I think we are going to have to learn to balance the technology world with family time, outside time, friends and work. It is a different time and different times require different thinking. Like my sister said once, the internet, Instagram, Facebook and others; have helped us learn about amazing things, places, people that we otherwise would have not had the opportunity to see and learn. That is how my sister and I got to try a lot of really cool natural and organic products, through posts by these companies all over the world and also by subscribing to an organic/natural monthly box (that my sister discovered through Instagram) We are able to use cool products across the world that are not found in local stores in a matter of minutes…how cool is that ah?! So, here I am writing a blog about social media so I can post it on Facebook…and continue my love/hate relationship with social media 😉
Con amor
Wendy
The Minimal Sisters 