One Taught Me Love, One Taught Me Patience, One Taught Me Pain: My Relationships With Social Media
Every day I do the same exact thing: wake up to Drake’s “Best I Ever Had” as my alarm, roll over and check my socials and then maybe get out of bed for coffee.
Twitter is my one true love because he makes me laugh multiple times a day, sometimes makes me cry, but is literally always there for me. I spend an hour and twenty-two minutes on average scrolling through Twitter daily. Twitter is the only app I constantly have running. I get a little bit of FOMO from Twitter, and I have this thing where I can’t miss any tweets on my timeline or I’ll spontaneously combust or something like that. I use Twitter for my daily news, sending direct messages, tweeting useless nonsense and sometimes posting photos. But my absolute favorite thing to do on Twitter is to live tweet a TV show, or event using a hashtag. I’ve live-tweeted for American Horror Story, Twin Peaks: The Return, and a few televised red carpet events. Collectively tweeting about the same thing from all over the world is a cool thing to be a part of. Twitter users are like a weird family, and I love them all (except the Russian Bots and Toni Lasagna).
Instagram and I have an on-again-off-again relationship, and it hasn’t always been healthy. I admittedly get bored of Instagram pretty frequently and take short breaks from being active. When I click my Instagram app I probably spend most of my time stalking myself, I scroll through my old posts and check my layout a lot. When I post photos on The Gram 99.99% of the time they’re of myself. It’s not that I’m a huge narcissist or anything but I’m not really artsy and I like the way I look, sue me. I used to borderline obsess over Instagram likes and followers so I actually deleted my account in high school and started fresh. I really don’t give a shit about followers anymore and could care less if I get likes, but I do like Instagram for the most part.
I’m about to break up with Snapchat because he’s honestly way too clingy and I have no time for him anymore. My relationship with Snap started out strong but it’s hanging on by a thread here now. I post stories sometimes, but rarely watch others. I don’t even have anything else to say about Snapchat. I just don’t even like it anymore, the updates are whack and I despise the Discover page. Thank U, Next.
Facebook and I have a good relationship but I’m starting to have trust issues. I’m connected with so many family members, old middle school friends, and teachers that Facebook and I will probably never break up. But, I’m especially wary about my information on Facebook being leaked/sold after all the bad press they’ve received recently. However, I love it when my grandma (Shoutout to Bonnie!) hypes me up on Facebook or tags me in something I’ve already seen. I really think that Facebook will be the one place that I’ll be able to connect with old college roommates and colleagues when I’m retired and living in the tropics one day.
I’ll leave you all with some lasting advice… If your relationships with social media ever become toxic, dump them. I finally dumped Snapchat and its been wonderful not dealing with his awful updates anymore. It was definitely you Snap, not me. My advice to you is to take a hiatus from the apps-seriously delete the apps and watch your headspace become much clearer. And if a social media app is being too clingy, turn off the notifications. You don’t need that type of negativity in your life, boo.
