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| More or less how I feel after 15 years of explaining science to alleged grownups. |
My wife doesn't understand why anybody should give up Facebook. Now, you have to understand that she didn't actively start paying any attention to Facebook until maybe five years ago or so. On top of that -- get this -- she doesn't subscribe to any news or politics, and her feed is full of kittens and rainbows, and she's probably the first one to post a Happy Birthday to you, even if you're a friend of mine from way back and she's never even met you. A pure heart.
Me, on the other hand....well, let's just say my experience has been different. Dustups in the comments section has led me to a few legitimately scary moments with strangers; doomscrolling from sunup to sundown; surfing one ginned up headline to the next just to get that adrenaline high. Great times.
My doctor, on many occasions, has ordered me to break from social media, and while I have certainly backed away, breaking away has been tough. But why?
Certainly, as an introvert, I find electronic communication quite easy. Honestly, how lazy can this communication be? A new family member or a new job gets the ol' thumbs up....but also, so does your sandwich. A lost family member, or a challenging life moment gets you a solid "care" emoji, maybe even a sad emoji...the same as the picture you posted of your delicious sandwich now splattered on the floor.
For a time, I thought about responding to every post in my feed with the laughy emoji, or the angry emoji. But you wouldn't have gotten the joke, and you would have, rightfully, unfriended me. But then we'd see each other at the bank, and I'd forgotten about the emoji that I didn't really mean, but that YOU definitely remember and now you're winking daggers at---
So, you get the idea.
In just a few short days, I feel more balanced, less panicked and better informed. I had known for some time that raging headlines were keeping me in a state of addiction. "News Junkie" is a pretty old term and, without looking, I'm guessing it was coined with the advent of cable news. In journalism school, I was well aware of the threat CNN and USA Today (I know, right?) posed to journalism. At that time, it was distilled news: bars and graphs, bullets, graphics, white space) that was the monster under the copy desk. It wasn't until 2001 when CNN discovered if you left "Breaking News" screaming in a blood red Chiron at the bottom of the screen, you'd get people glued to the screen all night, people who just might buy term life insurance and Prevagen.
But, of course, the world is really different now. You can't go back to living like things were 40 years ago and expect to be up-to-date. Papers are gone, letters are gone, much of "society" is gone (my fellow introverts, especially you readers under 30, you have no idea how the lack of internet required you to interact with others for everything you wanted -- from the morning paper, to a pizza, to paying your phone bill, to asking for directions; in those days, if you went a day without speaking to anyone, it was a serious sign of depression.
Maybe it still is.
