the silent addiction to social media

by Winston

Many years ago I refused to be on Facebook and people thought I was weird. I just didn't see the need to bother with it as I was distracted enough just dealing with emails.

Well one day my staff thought it would be a good idea to setup an account to help promote my company, I agreed under the condition that it is only used for business.

That lasted a while until I needed to connect to a Korean company in order to do some product testing for them... then came my decision of "well if I am connecting with companies, I might as well connect with my friends" and thus began my slippery slide down into purgatory.

I remember the first time I posted a status update and everyone I knew thought it was a spambot or someone else using my name, as it couldn't possibly be me!

At first it was fun trying to figure things out, to be exposed to this virtual world where everyone is online all the time checking out your status updates, liking posts, photos, anything and everything you put up.

Installing the app on my iPhone was no different than an addict hooking right up to their dealer. The constant dopamine hits from the phone would over time feel normal, eventually become too hard to ignore.

When I became aware of my habit of checking into Facebook, it was nuts!

I am amazed at how many times my subconscious caused me to launch it on the phone, so I just deleted it. Now I'm aware of the withdrawal as I can feel my eyes scan for the app on the phone screen, and my hand twitch from muscle memory of pressing where the icon was located.

But I remember that my life was fine before I ever got absorbed into Facebook, before I started comparing myself to everyone else's life and beating myself up by telling myself how crappy my situation is.

Why I'm not there on vacation... why I'm not doing that activity... why I'm not trying that food... why I'm not...

It never ends! I fell into the trap and believed this is all real, but it's not.

Life isn't living by a bunch of highlights, filtering out the shit and just taking in the good stuff. I got conned and it was a very slick pitch.

I've wasted enough time in the past 5 years being addicted to the dopamine hits and just really don't care anymore to know what everyone else on the planet is doing.

Now I'm just going to live my life and "be weird" again.

#chasingbutterflies