Wasting Time on Social Media

"Mental Health"

I have found Social Media to be a great way to keep myself distracted from things that I could otherwise not deal with.

I have been on the internet since the 1990's. Back then we used "Discussion Forums". "Bulletin Boards". Obviously, they are still found and still in use all throughout the web. Like many people, I often would have been too shy and full of insecurities to use my real name. However, at times I would use the condensed identifier of 'dberladyn' to do so. A pseudo-name was always easier. A pen-name. A fake-name. A user-name. If you ran into an issue within an online community it stayed within that community. No one knew who you actually were.

When Facebook came out I had thought about joining, but then I decided not to. I was untrusting towards it. I was also bitter and envious of it or something rather. I had all these great ideas from time to time as I am sure that many people did with the new communication medium offered by the newly expanding territory called the internet. I wanted to make my own mark on the world. At least like many people, I was conscious of an ability to easily do that at the time. Be the first car company. Be the first telephone company. Etc.

In 2008 I had finally joined after being pressured to do so by my younger sister. I finally joined after being encouraged by my younger sister do so. I remember her trying to encourage that it was a great thing to do because you could connect with all your friends. You see what they are up to and all that kind of stuff. As usual, I was frustrated and upset with myself for taking her advise. Keeping up with the Jones'es and following along with flocks of people in the latest fads was never my thing. Not unless I decided to do that from the core of my person.

Regardless, like so many other people I was super insecure over Facebook. I would post something, then be all nervous and remove it. I just could not handle the fact that I might have made myself out to look like the idiot I was. It is always better to keep your mouth shut and have people think you are stupid, than to open your mouth and confirm it. It's not really that, but I just was troubled with the idea of losing my anonymity. I was troubled with the idea of not being unable to unplug from one group and jump into another as a completely different me.

Which for me is something that goes back to high school perhaps. I never wanted to cement myself as this, or as that. Not until I figured out life. Not until I figured out myself. Not until I figured out who I was, were I fit, and what I could potentially be. Not until I figured out the perfect me. I am not sure how to write it, but I understood it so well in my teenage years. I also understood all my issues with social media so much clearer in 2008 and shortly there after joining Facebook. Insecurity I suppose that was the problem. The best summary of such.

I could let go for a time and post. Just be me. However the day would soon come where you just began filling with fear and deleting everything for this silly reason, or that silly reason. Like most people, I didn't really want my information on there. I didn't really want to be known, or to offer a bunch of data to some database collected for some purposes that were completely opposing to my own stance of wanting to be unknown and undefined. I still know people to this day that do not want to be on the internet to have their data collected, never mind social media. I regulated myself to keeping an account as an listing in a phone book. Basic contact.

After my reasons for stepping out and opening right up in the beginning of 2016, Facebook and Social Media became a much needed therapeutic means of distraction from my own problems that I could not get a handle on. When you are burdened by more problems than you can possibly cope with sometimes forgetting about those same problems and keeping your mind elsewhere is the best medicine. Distraction from your own misery. It's a survival technique of sorts. A survival mechanism. If problems are too difficult as there is no immediate solution, then thinking about them at times only makes them worse. In this case, simply occupy yourself with something else.

That was massive for me while I was homeless and facing a very grim reality. Don't look around at all the drug addicts and messed up people you have had no choice but to reside with, look at your phone. Follow politics. Follow anything but reality. Eventually doing so, whatever ailed you from dealing from things in your situation, whether that be your immediate internal health, or something in the external world, something somewhere will clear and you'll be able to take a step forward. In that manner, social media has been excellent for my person because handling some of my life periods would have been extremely miserable otherwise.

The downside to using distraction as a benefit is natural of course. The distraction itself can become the detraction. Getting so habit formed, so addicted, so distracted by what was benefiting you, that it becomes non-beneficial and actually harms you. You either fall into a state where you might not be looking after your manageable obligations any longer, or perhaps even worse and yet all the same.. the distraction that you are distracting yourself with begins damaging your overall health itself. What was a benefit becomes a detraction. Getting too caught up in politics could an issue for example. It has been very easy for me to watch hours turn into days, weeks and months of wasted time without truly being able to stop it.

Then of course, the real damage comes from developing expectations. Just as a person expects their telephone to work, they become accustomed to their "social media" working. My developed mechanism tell me when I am feeling these strains, reach out to these people. When I am feeling those strains, reach out to those people. Then suddenly at the worst of times, when life is running over you with issues that you absolutely need to deal with, you find that you are hit with another assault. You cannot contact friends, or partake in things that you not only need to, but are accustomed to as for whatever political reasons - your platform of distraction just cut you off. Cut you off your work leads, cut off your support leads, cut off your information needs, etc.

Anyways, I feel like I have a better personal grasp on Social Media these days. It still wastes my time, but that's only relative to how well I am doing out in the real world. I didn't mean this page to be so long. I have written much the same in a much more condensed manner in the past. I just wanted why and how I WASTED TIME on Social Media.