I hate myself a little more every time I check my phone. Every time I look for notifications that are never there, every time I pretend to be answering an urgent text message from a close friend. I'm tired of depending on the internet to validate me and I know this is nothing that hasn't been said before, but it's still how I feel right now.
I'm just as annoyed as the next guy at people who complain we are too dependent on social media. Everyone agrees with him but we're tired of hearing it because it's the harsh reality of life in the 2017. I regret my need to restate the facts, but I feel them more now, and I feel like my whole life revolves around desperately wanting to be more than I am and accepting that who am now is just a work on progress. I
know that I'm going to grow and change as a person, but do I have to despise who I am now? This is almost unrelated to the social media thing I was talking about, but not entirely because everyone else's pictures just make me feel like I'll never live up to them. See? The self esteem and social media thing go hand in hand.
I just wish everyone didn't feel like they have to make their lives look perfect on the screen. Like everyday is a literal walk in the park with your 7 closest friends. I just wish I didn't have to check my phone every five seconds, and that be a valid thing for me to spend my time doing. Now it's somehow 100% acceptable to spend 4 hours scrolling through your phone, and the entire weekend binge watching a Netflix Series that came out yesterday.
There's a million new unspoken rules (social norms, social scripts, expectations??) that accompany the fact that you follow everyone you know online, for example:
- If the picture you post doesn't get an even number of likes, there's no point in posting it
- If you stand anywhere for more than five seconds without taking out your phone to pass the time, you're a freak
- If you don't post pictures of an event online, it's like you weren't even there
- If you don't post on someones birthday a picture of you with that person, you're not even friends
- Binge watching 13 hours of a tv show is okay- if you rant about it on twitter
- You MUST have your phone in your hand or pocket at all times, because otherwise you could miss out on something incredibly important
Is it just me? Maybe I don't want to look at my phone while I'm eating a meal, or standing in a line, or with my friends, or at the mall, or on the couch, or at all. I'm tired of feeling like I'm supposed to spend every single second of my life looking at my phone. (Although taking the time to type this out isn't much better.)
XOXOXO
