Sunday 25 May 2014

Social media and why it's a massive pita

We're all guilty of having some form of social media addiction. I frequent Facebook and LinkedIn, Spadge is a regular twit and Heather is frequently ogling Pinterest. All three of us have Instagram and we all started ten years ago on MySpace (can you even remember those days?! 10 years?!).

Social media has become an inherent part of our lives and the lives of many others though, for the amount of trouble it gets me in, I find myself wondering if it's even worth it.

Before Sam and I were a couple, he spent the summer watching me on MySpace (should have rang ye olde warning bells then :p) but never himself had a MySpace and he hates Facebook with an ungodly passion. Despite his loathing opinions of social media, he regularly logs into my Facebook so he can spy on his friends. 

Generally, when I update my status on Facebook (rarely these days), I do the same as everyone else. Make an observation about something that has happened to me or something on the news, I might share a picture or a link to something I found interesting. 

So why my Facebook "friends" pick apart my status/link/photo and report my activities back to my husband/parents /grandparents, like I'm a petulant, misbehaving child is something I will never understand. 

The things that get misconstrued are unbelievable. I'm a slut for posting a picture if myself in underwear (if you knew me, you'd know how funny that is), I'm a lesbian because I enjoy spending time with my girlfriends and tell them I love them publicly (yes I touch their bodies, but it is not in a sexualised way - most of the time) and worst of all is when my husband comes home from work accusing me being an awful person because I was ranting about having 3 hour long nosebleeds, when his colleague has just lost his wife (all things out of my control).

Social media has changed society and social etiquette and I'm sure some people (myself most definitely included) struggle to manoeuvre through it successfully. But it doesn't help when the people you love the most in the world are the ones who are calling you the worst things. Because despite social media being an open forum for our lives, no one has the right to interfere and judge anyone else.

I now rarely update my Facebook. It became a laborious and time consuming task because I had to take what I wanted to say and adapt it to be husband/parent/grandparent friendly. I find myself not being able to be myself and therefore it loses it's point. 

Now, I am only ever my real self with my girlfriends when we are together. That's it. The rest if the world can't tolerate my over opinionated and crass views so I tend to keep them to myself anyway. I can't say in worse off for it. 

I do wonder what would happen if everyone stopped using their Facebook just for a day. In pretty sure the economy would collapse again.

Anyway. Back to work.

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