Social Media Madness

I have about had it with social media.

A dangerous thing, perhaps, when I'm about ready to cut back my accounting work, and do things that rely on social media for promotion and success.

But still, I've about had it.

It's my own fault.  An introvert that battles with selective mutism, I find social situations awkward and difficult, particularly with people I don't know well.  I either don't talk at all, or I babble on about not much of anything.  So, in some ways, social media has been a blessing, as it is easier for me to communicate in writing than it is in person or over the phone.

I have "friends", but most of them are confined to whatever group I'm in that I'm connected to with them.  I have many theater friends, but few whom I see or talk to outside of whatever production I'm in with them. Same holds true for work, church, or politically affiliated groups.

I thought of social media as a way to fill that gap.  It works, sort of.  I have high school connections that I'd never thought I would have again.  But I'm as likely to get one who wants to criticize my politics as one who, regardless of politics, wants to connect with me as a person.

It's taken me awhile to figure out, but I'm beginning to realize, for the most part, that the friendships I have on social media, are just as shallow as the ones I have in real life, if not more so.  When I withdraw from Facebook, as I did to a degree during Lent, everything seems to go as normal. Nobody misses me, nobody tries to touch base, it's as if I never mattered.

Although I can tell by the site page view counter in my blog, that my posts are being seen, I get very little feedback, or likes, or anything from them.  If I post a family picture, I am likely to get a lot of likes.  If I post something political, I get a fair number of likes, and other reactions.  But my blog posts?  Two likes would be a big showing.

I posted a link to a story about the latest in the Trump Treason Scandal, with the caption Game Over, and the reaction I got was not from Trumpeteers, but from liberal friends who wanted to argue with me about how it wasn't over, about how what they've done so far is not technically illegal.  I was prepared to get gruff from Trumpeteers.  I was not prepared to get assaulted from allies.  It kind of broke me.

I will continue with social media, but I realize now it's not my friend.  Acquaintances? Yes. Superficial connections? Yes.  Deeper friendships?  They have to be built on something more.  And that's going to be difficult for someone who has struggled with shyness all his life.

I think this is stemming from the fact that I will be soon switching to a greater retirement from the job I've known for over thirty years, accounting, and I fear that it may backfire, and I just wind up more isolated.  Fear of the new, fear of change, I guess.

No one needs to get over absorbed with this.  I'm just trying to work out some feelings of worry, doubt, and potential isolation.  After everything is said and done, writing does help me work through things.

I'll get there.  Just with  a more skeptical eye as to what social media can and can't do.  And that may be a good thing.