the underlying message of social media

A couple of weeks after the lockdown started, I uninstalled almost all social media apps like Reddit, 9GAG, Facebook, messenger, Snap-chat, Twitter, Instagram with exception of two: Whatsapp and YouTube.

First few weeks, I realized I used to scroll through randomly on my phone when I felt bored. It wasn’t even for 4-5 hours of continuous usage but like 6-8 minutes throughout the day for 3-4 occurrences. So it wasn’t a big deal.

Around a month later, I forgot the date when I went offline and couldn’t keep a tab of how many weeks have passed. It was around this time I observed a spike in binging few episodes or got invested in playing games a lot. I thought I have surpassed the need to check social media or post on it occasionally. Even with them installed my posting habits were often as apart as a year or more and even then they were.. it was only 2/10 times about me. Mostly, about someplace, some nice click or some meme.

Months passed and I remembered the whole idea of abandoning social media was to read more or write more .. be more creative. Which clearly didn’t pan out. I didn’t regret it either until this last weekend…

Last weekend, I made my first ever YouTube video(please watch and subscribe :P). Recorded it, edited it, and post it. I should have been proud right? Created content in spare time is good? The core of this whole personal story was the need for time to time social approval. We as humans seek approval from the external world on basic things on a routine basis to feel happy or satisfied. Be it about the places you visited, the food you cooked, memes you shared or made, podcasts you listened to. The relatability makes us sane. The extremes here are people who keep posting non-stop and people who rarely post.

The rare posters think that they don’t need social presence or it doesn’t really matter or isn’t important. However, even for them, rarely approval is needed. There isn’t an actual escape out of this pattern. It is normal. Not the new normal but the existing one.