After a particularly good day of relaxing, I found myself feeling bad about not spending enough face time with my wife. There’s of course a limit to that, but my Attention Defecit will not allow me to just sit for any significant length of time. This causes all sorts of relationship problems for me. Because people talk small talk, and I just tune out. I’d rather be blowing up aliens, or hacking the Matrix, or skydiving, or… something. Not fixing a broken shower head or remembering to feed the cats.
But we are happier when we have face-to-face interaction with people. Isolation draws us inwards, and if you stare inwards _too_ long, you won’t like what you see. The reason for this is that we’re our own worst critic. We are intimately familiar with our own failures and shortcomings, and we know exactly where they are. We put on a facade of “cool” to convince people we’re not as messed up as we are, but the truth is, everybody’s messed up- and we know it all too well.
When you compound this with Social Media, things get ugly really quick. Social Media isn’t the same as a relationship. At best, it is an interactive contact list, and should be used as such. But no real discourse can be made there, as it is (by design) tailored to short attention spans. You’re not going to sway people’s minds, you can’t solve personal problems, and you can’t right the world’s wrongs there. It’s just a big echo chamber, and nothing important happens there, because by definition you have to be on a screen (and away from real life) to interact there. Even a mobile device.
So what is the proper solution? How should we treat Social Media? What role should it play in our lives?
In my life, I’ve somehow convinced myself that “staying in touch” is valuable. But what exactly is it accomplishing? Is my ego so fragile that I need to know that hundreds of people “like” me? Do they really care if I know their every day routines? How cute their kids are?
Let’s be real honest… do I need to care about everyone on my friend list?
Simply put, I can’t. It’s not possible. I cannot care about people I haven’t seen in 20 years as much as I care about people I see every day. I just can’t. I don’t have the capacity or the time to be actively involved with everybody I know. Trying to do so only steals time away from those who actually need my attention.
So I’m going to go back to un-following everybody on my friend list, except people I actually interact with on a regular basis. I suggest you do the same. Your current relationships deserve your full attention, and following everyone on Facebook will only detract from that.
My remote friends are more than welcome to follow me. But if after several years they haven’t contacted me in any way, it’s safe to assume they’ve moved on, and so should I. They know where to find me if they need me.