I don’t know if you have heard of a trend on Instagram called Follow Unfollow? Basically, an individual or organisation will follow you so that you go onto their profile and (hopefully) follow them back. After two days or so that individual will then go back and ‘unfollow’ you, having gained a follower by faking interest in your profile. To be honest, I felt a bit betrayed the first time I realised what had happened.
But in many ways, I should not be surprised. Instagram may be one example, but I have found that all of us 20-somethings use fake commitment to get what we want. Just to clarify, it has never been a historic norm for people to accept invitations to events and then not show up. Posting something on your feed that doesn’t mean much to you, but is guaranteed to garner ‘likes’ is another way you can con yourself into thinking that you are OK.
There are two elemental flaws with this way of thinking:
- Just because it comes from you doesn’t mean it is you
I have seen many people post things that are the exact opposite of who they are. Whether it is a rant or some philosophical observation, it is very easy to fake something to please other people. So if someone likes a post of yours, does it mean he or she like you? Not really. In the end, anything we post, say or even write is going to be a superficial representation of who we are. Books wouldn’t be able to capture the complexity that makes you ‘you’ and me ‘me’. But our generation is settling for a number of ‘hearts’ or ‘thumbs up’ given by people who might happen to see something they published to the world on a feed. You don’t have to live like this for long to realise it is not fulfilling. Who you are is so much more than what you are putting on social media. Don’t belittle yourself – your creativity, beliefs, character and personality – to a few posts a day.
- Numbers don’t mean you’re thriving
At the most, the number of likes or thumbs up you have are a representation of your success to communicate something to the world. All you have to do is look at Justin Bieber’s Insta to realise that more people can like a blurry photo of the side of someone’s head than anything heartfelt and profound you can conjure up. Social Media’s version of approval is definitely an immediate morale booster, but it won’t last longer than a few seconds. To desperately try to get people to follow you is a sorry way to live life. Marketers and the like have found it is a clever way to piggyback on our manic obsession with numbers. I am scared that one day our virtual presence will one day be more important than our actual presence. The moment a phone becomes more important than the person sitting across the table, there needs to be some serious re-evaluation of your priorities.
The only reason I can write this is because I have experienced all of this myself. If you can identify with anything I have said, maybe try to some meaningful face-to-face conversation. You see unlike Facebook, you are actually going to have to be a friend to someone before you become friends. Unlike Instagram, you are going to have to engage with someone before you like them. You’re going to have to know what someone believes before you follow them. Conversations are actually things that require a response.
I hope you follow what I’m trying to say… (Sorry couldn’t resist). By all means go crazy on social media, but please make sure that if your phone was taken away your life would not fall apart.