Hoping Social Media Gets Tired

I remember having a Myspace in grade school.  I didn’t go on it much, and I only got it because of pressure from my two sisters in the first place.  I remember thinking at the time, “this is just a fad, and it will be over in a year or so.”  As it turned out I was right, but not in the way I thought I would be.  Myspace soon became less and less popular as I had predicted.   The reason it became less used by people was not because they were tired of social media, as I had hoped.  Facebook became the new popular “thing.”  It had taken the place of Myspace and people all around me gravitated towards that instead.  Before I knew it even adults were logging on to Facebook.  My friends and I one by one were faced with the horror of receiving friend requests from our parents.  I will admit, I too got a Facebook.  I’ll also admit that I still go on Facebook.  However, I am a firm believer that a lot of things are all right when used in moderation.  I think that many people have become attached to their social media accounts.  This does not just mean Facebook, but includes Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and all the others.  There seems to be a new one every week or so.  I saw an ad the other day that stuck me in an odd way.  It was about cell phones and said that people are more connected with their friends and family now than ever.  In the ad, there were about four or five people in a room on their phones.  I have seen this happen in real life.  People will be physically somewhere and mentally trapped in the void of social media on their cell phones.  I want it to all just go away.  I recently read about a study done that correlated Facebook use to happiness.  It said that the more time a person spends on Facebook, the less happy they are likely to be.  This, to me, is completely believable.  We’ve all sat at our computers at one point or another and had at least an inkling of jealousy while looking at someone’s pictures and wishing their life was ours.  All this time that people spend on social media seems to be doing just the opposite of what it was meant to do.  Instead of bringing people together, people seem more disconnected than ever.  Less face-to-face conversations happen on a daily basis.  People hide behind their computer screens in order to communicate with others.  I’ve seen many relationships and friendships be destroyed from social media.  I also feel that it can at times be an invasion of privacy.  If I go out with friends and someone takes a picture, it is likely to be seen by many people who I know.  The next day, everyone will know that I wore the sweatshirt that belongs to the guy who left it behind at my house the week prior.  I realize this may not be the best moral thing to do.  My point is that social media gives people the ability to know much more about you than you are likely to feel comfortable.  Hopefully, this social media craze will not last forever.  I wonder how long people can care this much about what others think about them.  I still hold on to my dream of living in a post Facebook, Twitter, and whatever other social media site world where people have lost interest in obsessing over how many likes they get on their picture of yesterday’s lunch that they posted on their page.