Digital Emancipation and That Kind of Thing

I don't like to threaten. It feels childish, like I'm taking a position on the playground, drawing a line in the sand. Instead I'd rather just state my intent, giving plenty of notice and follow through. So before I shut down my primary social media profile today, I wrote about it there more than a week ago. Throughout the week, even though almost no one saw it, I posted it so that anyone who might see would not be blindsided. Yesterday afternoon I noticed a post from someone I know about people making empty threats about closing their accounts, essentially browbeating them as cowards.

It was all the reassurance I needed to fire up the computer this morning and turn my back on what's become, for lack of a better term, the gauntlet. 

When I first meandered into social media, it was nascent. News boards and forum groups. But it was growing fast into something else. It still is. But back then, more than 15 years ago, my life was different and I was a different person. I wanted attention and I had a career in music to promote. My marriage was breaking down. I spent more time on the road and playing in clubs when I was in town than I did with friends or loved ones. Feeling something like validation in the form of 'likes' and even flirtation fed into that craving. Fostering virtual friendships and seeing the number of followers rise was more than pleasant; it was satisfying. It meant something to me that I had more than 25,000 profiles following mine on MySpace before I left that site. It was no less exciting watching as I quickly maxed out the number of 'friends' I could have on Facebook and having to open a second profile, a music page.

But my life has changed and so have I. The need and desire to take 'breaks' from virtual reality became a bigger thing. The last time I did it lasted years. For the last month I have done a little experiment. Every Monday morning before I left home, I'd open Facebook and scroll through my feed. Each week it took longer to find something I wanted to see. Last week, after an hour of looking, I gave up. What wasn't openly hostile was depressing. Painting politics in black and white or sharing video footage of cruelty to animals. Emojis depicting laughing uproariously were the only commentary and captioning of cell phone captured celebrations of human stupidity. Memes had become more popular than the construction of sentences or coherent thoughts. The only way to have any exchange with actual friends was in private messaging or risk incurring derision from others who've decided that public 'conversation' is really an invitation to be mocked. Or worse.

Again, I don't want this to read like I'm taking a superior position or that I'm slamming social media. I'm not. In fact, I still belong to a few sites. But the reasons I go to them now are not what they were in the past. It's rare that I'm seeking anything more than some momentary diversion or distraction. To do that in some places is like walking onto a shooting range wearing a target. 

It's taken me a long time to build a life that I like. I'll take that over what I generally see online now. I'm too old to decipher the changing vernacular, to decode a language I don't really want to understand. If it's a place you enjoy, I hope you continue to. You'll find me in the world of matter these days, not in the online soap opera and feud factory. 

Except of course that I posted this online.