When people talk about the downsides of social media and the internet in general, most people focus on oversharing information, getting carried away by optics, or even comparing one’s life to others.
However, I think there’s another subtle yet crazy effect that we don’t really talk about: the gentle reorganization of our minds in a way that we are unaware of until it’s almost too late. For example, this new wave of restaurant “be my girlfriend” proposals that we all love so much. The other day, someone posted it, and most of the comments from women were something along the lines of “If he doesn’t do this, I don’t want” or “My man must do this,” and I just started wondering when chocolate syrup on a white ceramic plate became the standard of love again?
As someone who uses social media often, seeing the shift in what others see as the standard is interesting. Someone gets a job that pays 300k, which, in fact, is 2x what they were earning at their last job, but they come on Twitter to see people saying 300k is chicken feed and is barely enough for their monthly data subscription. Suddenly, this guy who should be celebrating a promotion is dissatisfied, feeling inadequate and foolish for even thinking 300k is big money.
A good personal example for me is ‘Masters.’ I would really love to get an MBA, but because of how many posts of people getting their MSc I see often, I didn’t know that my desire for it had shifted from something I really wanted to something that made me feel incomplete and behind because I didn’t have yet.
Every day on social media, it’s always one new thing or the other.
“If your man does/doesn’t do this, he hates you.”
“If your woman is this way or that way, leave her.”
“Your friends hate you if they do or don’t do this.”
“If you don’t have this/that, what do you really have?”
“You should be doing this by now.”
“If you’ve not had this experience or that, you haven’t started living.”
And it is all “whatever, it’s not my business,” until you wake up one morning and you can’t figure out why you are feeling so sad and dissatisfied about your life, even though nothing is technically going wrong. Until you find yourself wondering why you never come home to a house full of flowers or why you can’t take a spontaneous trip to SA.
Don’t get me wrong, none of these things are wrong in themselves. The question is, how many of these desires are really yours? If you look at it well enough and dissect the different parts of it, which of these desires are truly from you and you alone? How much have you been influenced?
The truth is that the social media age is not about to get better, in fact, it is most likely to get worse. As the Bible says, you must fight to guard your heart with all diligence. Otherwise, you’ll be living a life that’s not yours and will never be satisfied. Because if there’s one thing that will happen on the internet, there’ll always be a new standard to aspire to. Always.
