Envy

A week ago a friend sent me an article that within a few sentences I had some strong feelings about. The article basically said that we ( social media users ) often look at Facebook or Instagram and see how wonderful other peoples lives are wonderful but how ours sucks in comparison. They reason we see how wondrous others' lives are is because the only talk about the great things going on in their life and not the bad.

It says that we don't check social sites when we are at our peak times and we only check when we are bored or doing some mundane thing or waiting for something. Yes that's true, that's when things are checked the most but people post even in peak times. How else would you see celebratory moments whether the post is slightly delayed of the moment or not?

I agree when the article says that life looks prettier on the internet. When we blog we hide behind a screen and vomit out feelings knowing that we wont get to see the immediate reaction to whoever reads, when we Facebook we talk about silly nonsensical things but when someone writes a post about something that actually matters we keep scrolling down ( or up! ) our feed to get to the next post about who got voted off whatever show. Then my current fav, Instragram, as an artist I follow a lot of friends but mostly artists. I see a lot of art that I either hate, like, or that inspire me. Then I get to the non artist and there are the landscapes and the food pics which I'm ok with but so help me I will chuck my phone across the room if I see another Insta pic of close ups of nails or a shot taken of whatever shoes your wearing while your standing up.

Then the article loses me. It says social media is "dangerous" because it threatens "community". That we have to have physical aural discussions, and be close in proximity, and break bread with each other in real life to have community. That its not possible with social networking.
On Twitter I've met several artists, illustrators, animators, and cartoonists that I have gotten to know and that we interact on a semi regular basis and that have given me advice and counsel on my own artistic path. This past Christmas I participated in an Art Exchange with a bunch of artists. How is that not forming "community"?

The article then urges other people to stop connecting using apps and start connecting through other personal means like emails or texts. So what happens when the person you text doesn't answer back? What if you really want to hear from a person and you never get that text ,or email, or call? How is that really any better? To me that would bring the same amount of negative feelings that I'd get by seeing posts of someone having the time of their life while I wasn't.

The article was an interesting read, I just think that people should take social media so seriously. It's meant to be a time waster why cant we just leave it at that?