This began as a comment to my friend M.D.'s post about loosening social media's chains on us. After a few paragraphs, I realized I was inconsiderably hijacking her post. Therefore, I moved the whole thing over to this platform, and will invite her to read it without taking over her personal space.
I'm not poo-pooing your post. This is independent commentary.
Since the end of 2020, I found a lot of relief in YouTube. (Not because of the pandemic, rather because of the creep flooring installer who took money and went to Aruba - now serving time for doing this to more than one family.) I have rediscovered art.
Unfortunately, I also, via Facebook, discovered "reaction" influencers who sadly make me feel superior and a bit arrogant - not how I want to feel.
Social media has, also sadly, made it possible to immediately find out who died. Sometimes, Andee will see a post. Other times, family or I will send out quick individual messages because, in Judaism, we hold funerals as soon as within 24 hours, when possible. When my mom died, due to flight schedules we had a few days to make calls. However, when my dad died 283 days later, I was frantically phoning people while I drove the 1.4 miles from my office to the funeral home, but putting away my phone as soon as I arrived. The funeral director paused our meeting to ensure I'd emailed - or DM'd - as many people as I could remember. Social media, and copy & paste, helped me reach more people than I could have phoned in the same amount of time.
Obviously, we've utilized it for good things, too - most recently, I think, was reaching out to a former friend, whose grown-up daughter and I became *really* close, to get said daughter's number. (Due to a personal situation on her end, we lost touch.) We had coffee last week and I think I'm going over for dinner to meet her wife this coming week. In 2022, after attending a workshop held by a favorite YouTube artist, I met for the first time one of my mom's blogging buddies. She'd posted 50 reasons she loved her husband back in 2002, I think, and it was such a good post my mom insisted I read it. We became fast friends. OMG, one of the best afternoons of my life. (A mutual friend of yours, M.)
I've been disgusted enough by influencers that I inadvertently started to beg my nieces on Christmas to never become influencers. ("Inadvertently" because Christmas morning wasn't the time, and because I'm quite sure their parents' input is better than anything I could offer.)
Social media, for me, has become my main source of socializing. I've met some of my best online friends IRL. On another platform, I joined a sub group of book addicts, and ultimately met up with a friend in Ontario. I next saw her ten years later, when she invited me to be in her wedding in Montreal. I've been able to support people online via chat better than I could have with AOL IM, and have been able to receive their support. FaceTime was some of the videotelephony that led to Zoom. Zoom helped me provide notary services during the pandemic, AND it helped me get medical care when I wasn't willing to sit in a doctor's waiting room. (For now, insurance is still letting me see my therapist through a proprietary medical videotelephony platform.) Videotelephony kept people together during a period that a virus tried to separate us.
This is the only paragraph I'm going to include in her comments:
Social media not only binds me, but its rope is rough and the ties were knotted when wet. They're hard to loosen. I don't know what happens to my brain now, but your post gave me a lot to think about.
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