I have a love-hate relationship with social media.
At times I am extremely thankful for it, because it lets me keep up to date with them (to the extent that they update la) even though I’m so far away. Conversely, it also allows me to keep them up to date with what I’m up to.
But at other times, I get so overwhelmed by it I want nothing to do with it. I turn away from looking at any social media platform and completely stop posting altogether.
One moment I feel like thankful it exists because it’s so useful and keeps us connected, the next moment I feel disgusted because it feels so superficial and simply showing the side we want others to see.
WTH right. I feel so Jekyll and Hyde-ish sometimes -_-
Does anyone feel this way or am I alone on this?
In fact, for this year’s birthday, I didn’t even feel like hearing from people who “remember” my birthday because Facebook told them.
So a while before my birthday, I removed my birth date from my FB profile.
Most interestingly, no one – and I mean Z-E-R-O – messaged me via Facebook on my birthday! For some reason, rather than upset, I was strangely relieved.
I did, however, receive birthday wishes from family and friends through LINE, Whatsapp and Hangouts :) I also realized that every single one of these people were people I invited to our wedding.
We kept our wedding very small and cozy (50+ people) and could only invite highly selected people; People we truly wanted to be there, and people who truly wanted to be there.
That they remembered and bothered to messaged me, that was what meant the most to me.
I mean, ya la, I know. It’s just a freakin’ birthday. What’s the bloody big deal, right? But the fact that they remembered. Remembered something about me that they didn’t have to.
But they did :’)
Going back to the FB issue.
On one hand, I feel it’s very tiring to have to receive and reciprocate thanks for wishes from people I hear from once a year, who “remember” because FB said so. It’s like “I don’t remember, but oh hey, since FB said so.”
But of course, if not for that FB reminder, these are people I won’t have an excuse or reason to talk to the entire year. And I should be appreciative that they bothered to take the effort to click on my name and type a message, right?
I perfectly understand both sides of the argument, which is why I get a little tired with myself sometimes cause I debate with myself endlessly lol. I’m either a very good or very lousy debater haha.
Btw, I’m extremely terrible at remembering people’s birthdays at the right time. I always remember it twice – once too early, and once too late. BRAIN, WHY YOU LIKE THAT?! To overcome this problem, I added everyone’s birthdays (from memory!) to Google Calendar. Now it will remind me to wish people at the correct time haha.
How is this different from FB’s reminders? VERY DIFFERENT OK.
- I remembered all the birthdays by memory.
- I took effort to type in all the dates and info into Google Calendar.
Not automated with zero effort like FB!
As for my bipolar feelings about social media, I guess that will continue for a while… possibly forever.
FYI I do not think of this blog as a “social media platform” mainly because I have never harbored any negative feelings towards it before. For me, rather than a place to be “social”, it’s simply a platform to record my experiences for my future addled-brain self :)
