It has been over a year since I am observing my attachment to my own social media profile. My daily routine doesn’t seem complete without checking my facebook account for updates, comments and likes. Now even news feeds that get infused on the pages have become a must-read activity as though reading the newspaper and few news sites weren’t enough.
Checking my social media page has made feel obsessed over something that I want to get rid of at the earliest.
A few days ago I happened to get on to my FB account and search for my old classmates from school. I almost got lost for half a day in going through the old classmate’s pictures, posts and updates. I even sent a message to one of them on her profile, hoping to be in touch with her again.
The next day I began my search for an old colleague. Now this was someone, I didn’t particularly like while working in the organization. Soon I found myself spending close to 30 minutes on reading his posts, pictures from his life. As I went back on some bitter memories I felt a little uncomfortable and thought it is best not to look for people that you never really want to look for in real life. Worse, I almost went on a guilt trip of that I was indulging in snooping, least of all some form of ‘snoop gate’ among all other gates that the country is witnessing in recent times.
And then I realized people can actually read your personal life through what you comment, like a post or a picture, share a story or a link. It is not just friends and unknown people depending on your social media’s privacy settings that you have opted that allow others to know about you. But you actually are recording your life through every photograph, every comment and link that you put across and making it so very open for the world to see. I do know a few friends now who were so hooked to this social media updates that every hour a post would be seen until it became really irritating for many. Today these people have opted out of any form of digital strolling be it spending time on search engines, updating their lives on facebook or posting their hourly pictures on Instagram.
Thankfully many of their friends have got back to get in touch with them through landline mode than any other form of communication tools. It is also a favour on people like me who out of courtesy would ‘like’ most pictures they shared even though they weren’t good. Today I feel I am soon going to go into that irritable obsession mode. What gave us the option of new form of entertainment momentarily; is soon turning into obsession for self and letting people know everything about you. It is time one sets a guard on updates and posts.
A little privacy and not uploading that selfie or that family picture in the restaurant can be fun too. I have taken a small step out of leaving my cell phone at home once in a while so that I enjoy the place and the moment than feel compelled to take the best angle for the selfie to be uploaded that very minute. I have also realized that the occasional habit that has now become more regular needs to be addressed before I need to seek help on the same. Hopefully I will soon go on a holiday where I cherish the moments as they are and not want to share it through pictures.
Hold on, I haven’t checked since morning, if the likes have increased from six to more since yesterday, on the photograph that I posted last evening. Maybe it’s time to tell Mark, this is going completely off the mark.
But does he care?