Social Media Cleanse

A few weeks ago our daughter told us that she did a Social Media Cleanse. “A what?” her father asked? She quickly laughed at him and replied, “I deleted a lot of people off my social media Dad!” I can’t remember the exact numbers now but she was quite proud of her reduced number of Instagram followers. As she started naming off people that she had removed both from Instagram and Facebook her Dad again started asking questions, like “well why did you delete her?” To which our smart, sassy, wise beyond her years, 19 year old daughter replied “because Dad I’m not still friends with a lot of those people and some I didn’t even know, so they don’t need to be on my page.” Wow she’s smart!

I keep saying I’m going to do the same thing, but I don’t. I will scroll through, delete someone here and there, but that’s about it. More often than not I look at the name and think of how we are connected and think maybe I’ll just leave them. Or I worry about what they might say if they realize I deleted them, how stupid is that? I’m a woman who lives for my husband and kids, and nobody else, and typically don’t give much thoughts to other peoples concerns about me. Yet in this area, I am always so slow to give in, to do what I know I need to do, to do what my daughter has already been wise enough to figure out.

Have you been there? I’m sure I’m not alone in this. When I think of life before social media I wonder how I let it get this far. 728. That’s the number of “friends” I have on Facebook. I can promise you I do not have that many friends, not even close. If we are really talking true friendship here, like the girlfriend you can call at 3 am for whatever reason, well I am pretty positive I can’t even make you a list of 10. But yet every day I share my life, lots of pieces of it, with the facebook world and in doing so with over 700 people who probably in all honesty could care less what my kid did, what I ate or where I went that day.

Now don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy social media. It has helped me connect with people from my middle and high school days, some of whom don’t live in the area anymore. It has helped me stay connected with former co-workers throughout the years. But it also has brought drama in many forms. Did you see what she posted? Did you hear what happened to him? I mean let’s face it, do we really need to know what everybody did today? Do you really care? Honestly, do you care? Probably not!

And then let’s talk about the fact that with today’s technology, it’s here forever, no matter what you might think. It doesn’t matter how good your privacy settings, it doesn’t matter if you only sent it to one person, it’s called a SCREENSHOT and it can be fuel for the devil. Every thing you say or do on social media can and will come back to haunt you, even if you don’t think there is anything wrong with what you posted. I don’t have a lot of things in my past that I’m not proud of, but let’s face it we all have baggage.

There is also the lack of communication skills that face our current younger generations and unfortunately are becoming an issue even for mine. There is no talking anymore, not on the phone, not in person. All communication is in the written form, through text. Writing is great, my husband and I have used it as a tool in our relationship many times. The old-fashioned way, hand-written letters, to communicate things when we were upset. Now to some that may seem silly, but to me, it kept us from saying things in the heat of the moment we couldn’t take back. It gave us time to think and review what we were writing before we gave it to the other person. But today’s youth and young adults don’t know how to do that, or talk at all.

Another problem is that it’s hard for us to meet a stranger today. Now back in the good ole days that meant you were kind to everyone you met and treated them as you would a friend. That’s not what I’m talking about. What I mean now, is that through friends of friends on social media we “know” who so many people are. And in that knowing we have preconceived notions of a person we’ve probably never met. I can only imagine how hard it is to date in this day and age, and I’m thankful I have no reason to find out. I’ve often said that kids can’t meet anyone they don’t already know everything about because they are somehow connected to most of the kids in their school district and the surrounding ones through their social media accounts.

Maybe eventually I can follow my daughters lead and do my own cleanse, I certainly know I need it. I need to buckle down and just do it, I know I will feel better afterwards. In many ways she picked a great word when she said cleanse, because that’s truly what it is. Whether it’s getting rid of the toxic posts or just simply narrowing down your news feed to those people who you truly, genuniely care about it, a cleanse is always a good thing!