Let’s Be Real

Photo by Tracy Le Blanc: https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-holding-iphone-showing-social-networks-folder-607812/

In 2009, I signed up for Facebook. I created my account for the same purpose that many people in those days did: to see what my friends were up to and to keep up with extended family. The interface was much simpler in those days. It also had silly features like “poking” and online games like Farm Town (a cartoony game I spent way more time on than I should have).

I still have Facebook today. I also have Instagram, which I signed up for a few years after graduating college in the hope that it would be a more positive experience than Facebook was turning out to be. I’ve never been able to stomach Twitter/X, and I won’t be touching TikTok with a thirty-nine-and-a-half-foot pole.

I’ve mainly kept Facebook and Instagram out of a desire to be in-the-know about what my friends and acquaintances are up to, and to use these platforms as a tool to spread my creative work and see the creative stuff that others post. Oh, and to use Facebook Marketplace (don’t judge me).

But my interest in these platforms is waning. It’s starting to feel increasingly fake and manipulative, and most of what I see now is random stuff I didn’t ask for. The software knows how to give you just enough of the stuff you want to see to get you to keep coming back. Which makes it sound like it’s being run by a drug dealer or a hyper-controlling romantic partner.

I’m not the only one who’s having these thoughts, either. This fact is partially evidenced, ironically, by the social media industry itself.

A couple years ago, I learned about a social media app called BeReal. This app was designed to be a place where you could post a picture of your activities at a random moment of the day chosen by the app, thereby showing your social circle what you’re up to. For many, BeReal undoubtedly sounded like an antidote to typical social media meandering. The idea was that you can’t fake a spontaneous moment in time. It’s a great idea. In theory.

I remember hearing of one instance in which the posting time was right in the middle of Liberty University’s Convocation service, and people who had the app stopped in the middle of the service to snap their pictures. I cringed a little when I heard about that, to be honest.

However, this app and its mission seem to have struck a chord with young people who want to experience something real online. Many find themselves frequently exhausted and emotionally used up by endless social media scrolling (myself included). Yet they can’t seem to stop because tech and media companies harness addiction science to consume our attention and sell ads. “If it’s free, you’re the product,” and all that.

What was once an opportunity to use the internet to keep track of your friends and family has become a free-for-all madhouse of nonstop entertainment content, rage-bait, virtue signaling, politicking, product placement, and even suggestive behavior (because sex still sells). Also, suddenly, the entire world—and an ever-increasing army of bots—can have an opinion on your content.

Good? Bad?

Shrug, say many people (myself included, all too often), as their hands drift subconsciously towards their phones.

Photo by Camilo Jimenez: https://unsplash.com/photos/people-using-phone-while-standing-qZenO_gQ7QA

I don’t know if there’s a scientific term for this cultural phenomenon, but it feels right to call it “social entropy.”

What’s real and true in our world? What do we have that hasn’t been twisted or memed into oblivion for the purpose of making money or making truth whatever we want it to be? Have we as a species become so Meta (double meaning fully intended) that we’ve lost part of what it means to be human in a society quickly devolving into cynicism, skepticism, nihilism, Brave New World-level hedonism, and practically any other “ism” you can think of?

It seems impossible to tell what’s real, and that simple fact is eroding trust, destroying relationships, engorging the mental health crisis, riling people up against each other, and making it oh-so-hard to get along with certain types of people in real life. After all, people act differently on the internet than they do in real life, just like what happens when they get behind the wheel of a motor vehicle. Or maybe they act like they wish they could in real life because the internet semi-anonymizes them.

As a result, anytime I’m in a room where someone is bringing up a controversial political, scientific, or religious thought, it feels like everyone in the vicinity puts on noise-cancelling headphones or sucks in a collective breath in anticipation of someone questioning their worldview.

Pin drops followed by mic drops.

Is this healthy? It feels more like the perpetuation of a culture of fear—fear of our egos being punched rather than stroked.

Here’s some further irony: I’m using social media to promote this blog. I may one day choose not to do that anymore, simply because social media tools are hard to use only as tools. Our algorithm overlords have wills of their own (i.e. bottom lines).

I want to be able to get along with people in real life no matter how similar or different they are to me. I want to be able to have constructive conversations about things that matter, outside of the black hole that is a social media comments section. The illusion of connectedness on the internet is flickering, and I’m starting to see glimpses of the gremlins turning the wheels behind the scenes.

Pay no attention to The Man behind the curtain…

I have my own website for a purpose: I’m in complete control of it. I pay to keep this site operational, because that’s the only way I can be (mostly) sure that my current and future creative work can’t be bent to someone else’s whims.

The unfortunate downside to that is a lack of discoverability. Social media provides anyone with the ability to be discovered by anyone else, and many content creators count on that.

I had a not-so-secret desire to be an “influencer” for a time, but that desire is quickly fading because I can now see the anxiety and burnout that can often be the unfortunate consequences of such a lifestyle. I’d rather spend quality time with people face-to-face, because that’s solid, not illusory.

Let’s be real: our current, social media-powered cultural moment is unsustainable.

So let’s be real, for real.