The peculiarities of being absent from social media

I mentioned in my previous post, ‘Social Media is to Be Grappled With’, that I had taken a hiatus from most social media (primarily Instagram and Twitter, which are the platforms people my age use most; I still use LinkedIn occasionally and check Facebook once a day lest I forget someone’s birthday). I did this for a number of reasons, and that post explored some of them. I feel like I now should also consider the effects of not being on social media, which come as a range of positive, negative, and not-really-sure feelings.

This period of absence, above all else, has made me step back and reconsider how my generation (zillenial if you will) are forming friendships and relationships differently thanks to the presence of social media as a third person in those relationships. This third 'person' acts as a conduit for knowledge in the relationship, preventing each person from feeling like they actually have to tell the other things for the other person to know them.

I have had a couple of experiences with a friend recently which have been amusing and alarming in equal measure, mainly in relation to the presence (or lack) of social media within them.

The first: I went for a walk with this friend a couple of months ago and discovered that she had got a puppy many months earlier. This is a close friend who I text, and see, fairly regularly. But this was the first I had heard of this puppy, something which to me was quite news-worthy. She marvelled that I didn’t know, assuming that I would have seen it on her social media as she now showed me the hundreds of pictures she had taken on her phone.

‘But how would I know if you hadn’t told me?!’ I said in response.

‘I forget that you’re not on social media.’

Funnily enough, it was with this same friend that I had my next weird feeling, a feeling of not knowing and of being slightly forgotten, if only for my lack of presence on social media. I texted her to check in and see how she was. I also asked if she knew yet when she was moving to London, as the last time I’d seen her she had mentioned that this was something she was thinking about. The conversation went like this:

Me: Are you moving to London soon??

Fill me in

Her: What!!! How do you always find everything out so late!!! Hahahah

I moved last week!

Me: WHY DONT YOU TELL ME ANYTHING

The only way I would have known that was if you’d told me hahahahaha

Her: HAHAHAH ffs

I just forget that you don’t exist on social media

Now this was bigger news than a puppy, and I felt for a moment a bit upset that I just hadn’t been thought of as this huge life event had happened for my friend. But who am I to be upset? I have willingly opted out of this system of assumed knowledge and sharing that is social media.

It is indeed peculiar to be on the outside of this system, when so much of my life has been spent inside it. As a zillenial, I reached adulthood alongside social media; I was growing up as it did too. I used AOL chat rooms in my later years of primary school. My friend and I made our first Bebo accounts together aged 11. I got a Facebook account aged 12. I am part of a new generation of tech natives, who are just entering the realm of adulthood, perhaps not even realising the effects that this technology is having, and maybe is yet to have, on us and our relationships.

My time away from social media has made me realise the extent to which it is the basis of my generation’s relationships. In some cases, it created what now feels like a false sense of closeness. What happens to genuine connection when a like or a generic ‘You look amazing!’ comment or message to a friendly acquaintance creates that sense for you? This may have been compounded by the effects of leaving university, but there are so many people who I previously felt quite close to but have now had absolutely no contact with because of my absence from the online world. Were these relationships only skin-deep to start with? Perhaps I shouldn’t punish myself for losing these connections; the human brain can only maintain so many relationships after all. But I think social media gives us the sense that we can uphold many more than is possible in reality. Through this medium, human connection seems to be wide-reaching, but largely shallow when you step back from it.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that, even with my close circle of friends, there is this world of assumed knowledge that I am no longer a part of. My generation assumes that, because everyone is online, everyone also knows what is going on with everyone else at any given time. It’s been strange to go from living with people, and everyone knowing what the others are doing at any given time, to actually having no idea what people are doing in their day-to-day, and for them to have no idea about me either. And it has surprised me to see how few have actually asked. But why would they? They are seeing the lives of hundreds and hundreds of other people every day in their little worlds of social media.

How many people, perhaps the C-grade friends and slightly-more-than-acquaintances, were previously being reminded of my existence before only because of my presence on social media? How many people now haven’t even registered my existence since I became absent from that world? Have any of them noticed an absence and wondered what’s going on? Does it matter? Am I being completely conceited in wondering all this? I think it’s part of human nature to be concerned with how we are perceived; it relates to our caveperson instincts for hierarchy and social survival. But social media has really thrown a spanner in the works of how our psyches are programmed.

In a way, it has been a breath of fresh air to pull away from this chaotic world of oversharing, the barrage of colourful highlights reels, especially when other aspects of my life have felt overwhelming in themselves. Admittedly, it has felt lonely at times too. But the longer I spend away from it all, the less I want to go back. I do crave connection, but social media doesn’t satiate me in that sense. I think I’ve maybe dug myself a hole with the simultaneous effects of Covid’s social isolation and my self-imposed digital isolation. But I’ve also had the time and space to really think for the first time in a while (for good and bad).

I’ve asked a lot of questions here, more than I can ever probably answer. But my relentless questioning highlights my curiosity about the transformative, yet highly normalised, power of online communication. Or perhaps, in light of what I have discussed, it is more of a broadcasting than a communication. On social media, we are broadcasters or receivers. The question is whether that new dynamic is having a real effect on our in-person relationships too. Will we over time have less capacity for listening, explaining, examining nuance? But this is something that we may not know for certain until we have the clarity of retrospect. For now, I’m staying curious.