As of last night I am officially done with what I consider the basic forms of social media. I got rid of Facebook 3years ago, never got into Snapchat and had enjoyed Instagram until a couple days ago. See, the thing is after reading the book How to Break Up with Your Cell Phone I realized how much time I was spending on Instagram for no reason. I could be playing more with my kids, I could be learning how to cook something fun, or actually having meaningful conversations with my real-life friends and loved ones. I am not saying that social media is the devil. It is a great resource for people who have friends and family in other states and want to keep up with their lives. However, for me deleting social media was something I needed to do to try and better myself. Better myself as a mom, wife, daughter, sister and friend.
My breaking point occurred a few days ago when two of my closest friends were posting to their hundreds of followers posts that were completely not true to what was actually happening in their lives. I love my friends and have gone through so many ups and downs over the last 20 years with them, but something about how they portray their lives as perfect and nothing ever wrong really bothered me. I wish they could be authentic to themselves. I understand that maybe what they post online helps them cope with what is actually going on behind the screen. My friends fake portrayal of their lives is not the only reason I decided to finally get rid of social media, it has to do with all of the other millions of people who are also doing the same thing. But let me give them credit where credit is due. Go ahead honey make that money selling FitTea or whatever product you are slinging because I don’t hate the hustle.
What worries me about social media is all of the cyber bullying, photoshopping and the self-esteem of people who belong to these sites. There have been more times than I could count where I looked at these perfect lives and questioned what am I doing wrong? Why aren’t I skinny enough?, how do these people get their children to stare at the camera? Why do all of their lives look like something straight from a magazine or Pinterest? Now all of the things I just listed are things that I personally struggle with and I know other people may think that is crazy, or not a reason to get rid of social media.
Moral of the story…I am officially done with social media apps. Done with newsfeeds, #s, and waiting to see how many likes a picture I posted got.
Suburban aMOMymous 