Have you ever suddenly glanced up
from your screen and realized you had been scrolling for far too many minutes?
Of course you have. That is what
Facebook, Instagram, and the rest of the social mediums and sorcerers are
designed for, after all: to pull you in, keep you there, and give you a magical
dopamine high while you do it. This is not necessarily a bad thing.
(ooh, you didn’t see that coming, did you?)
Those of you who know me well know
I love entertainment media more than most. I read thousand-plus page books. I’m
the kind of guy that caused Netflix to come up with the binge-watching format.
I sing along with musicals (and southern gospel cds). And I did once watch the
entire Lord of the Rings extended
editions back-to-back-to-back—although it took a little more manly fortitude
than I was planning on. Short version: I like entertainment, artificial dopamine
highs, and the advent of the Age of the Screen. All for it! Pop the corks! Cue
the golf applause!
But where it gets dangerous—particularly
for me and those of my ilk—is when all that magic happens by accident or for
the wrong reason. Such as when you’re planning on writing a homework assignment
and you watch three hours of Star Trek instead. When you call your brother and
instead of asking about his soul, you ask about his movie preferences. When you
are scrolling down your feed and bump into an exchange that was typed with both
fists, in all caps, with little understanding, patience, or grammar. Social media
is magic. I can revel in the
vacations of my friends, keep up with the growing families of my cousins, find
out about cool events in my area that otherwise would have flown under the
radar, and all from the comfort of my desk. But it has a dark side, too:
insulation from real people, fomenting of envy, and a large amount of time
consumed in doing absolutely nothing either productive or truly relaxing. When
was the last time you looked up from scrolling and felt well-rested, refreshed,
and satisfied down to your toes?
Since you’ve gone to my Facebook
page (which is, I presume, why you’re here) you may have noticed that mine’s a
few degrees off of standard. It’s a little light on pictures of my daily life,
rarely says anything political (or even informative), and my friend group is
rather...limited. This post is about telling you why that is, (yes, I do it on
purpose) in the hope of inspiring you to take a look at your own feeds and
pages and make a few conscious decisions about where, what, and when. Let me
pull back the curtain and show you how a few nuts and bolts go into the page
that is my public Wonderful Wizard of
Oz.
First off, I only friend people I
know well enough to have an actual, casual chat with in real life. Facebook is
far more like an extended living room conversation that way, instead of an envy
platform. This means, by the way, that if you tried to friend me and I didn’t
take you up on it, you should talk to me more. Hint hint. This has the added
advantage of keeping uncharitable offenses down to the minimum. I’m sarcastic
by nature—some might say I’m jammed down on the “chronically sardonic” end of
the scale! I have found over the years that social media is about the worst
possible media for conveying such sentiments. (Though emojis have helped.) People
have a hard enough time telling if I’m being serious when they can see my
eyebrows and hear my tone of voice. Hopefully knowing me in person cuts down on
the possible misunderstandings. Second, I actively try to keep what I post
either inspiring or funny. I actually do
want people to walk away from their social media time refreshed and satisfied,
particularly in a world that is scary, strident, and incessant. If one of my “It
Happened at WinCo” or “Bachelor Chronicles” makes your day a little better, I’m
meeting that goal. Third, I will post pretty much no political/religious controversy.
You’re always preaching to the choir or ticking somebody off, at a distance
where you can do nothing about either. There may be a helpful way to do that,
but I know that I can’t; at least not in that medium at my point of life. If
you like doing those things, go for
it, but that’s not my cup of tea. Fourth, remember that barring an EM pulse or
a systemic electrical shortage, those posts are more or less permanent. Do you
really want your employer, future spouse, or God Forbid, your kids pulling a few of these things up at
a later date? The mind, as Jeeves said, boggles.
I’m sure there’s more to say, but
that should do for the present. Go forth, and scroll no more!
Fine, I’m kidding. But at least
think about why you do what you do when the screen is lit.
