Fuck Social Media II

 Social media vs a bicycle

The worshippers of social media can't hear anything against the platforms. They are so dissolved in the dopamine hits that they can't see beyond their screens. "Why don’t you use social media in moderation? Can't you see all the good that social media is bringing to the world? Don't be a fucking hater and complainer." I wouldn’t have hated social media as much I hate it now if it was a tool that we could consciously choose to use. It is a tool that uses us. As made clear in the NETFLIX documentary "The Social Dilemma", a bicycle never lures you into using it, it doesn’t send you notifications asking to ride it, it doesn’t manipulate your behavior to keep you riding all day. I used to think that there was something wrong with me because I was so addicted to social media. Now I know that I am completely fine, social media is designed to be addictive. It is designed to keep you hooked. So, don’t give me the nonsense that social media is just a tool like a bicycle. It doesn't depend on us how we use it. Don’t be ignorant. Don’t justify your love affair with social media with bullshit. 

The Celebrity Illusion

You are not a fucking celebrity. Why are you trying to pose like one? Why are you posting every thought that runs through your head as if the world would be deprived of your genius if you didn’t share your ideas? Look at the caption of the photos that people post on social media. The delusion of grandeur is real. They search for a perfect quote on google that matches the theme of the photo and also signals in some way of their attitude and superiority. Go do something with your life and achieve something asshole. Attitude captions on your photos mean nothing if you haven’t achieved anything in life. The true achievers in life never do such shit. The wannabes and the losers think that they can prove their worth by posting stupid shit on social media.  

You are the product

If you are not paying for something, you are the product. Simple! Ask yourself why all social media platforms are free? Why do they desperately want you to join their platforms? They are selling you. They are selling your data. They are selling your attention. They are selling your time. You are a data-whore for the tech companies. Just like a whore in 18th century London allowed a new penis to penetrate her every other hour, we are allowing tech companies to penetrate our privacy and steal our data. We are whores for them. They constantly juggle our data (analogous to the whore's genitals) among each other. The only difference between us and the ancient whores is that at least they knew that they were getting fucked. 

 Live for yourself

If you are taking photos all the time and posting them on social media, are you living for yourself? Are you living in the moment? You are living for someone else's attention and validation. Nobody gives a fuck about you and your vacation. Learn to enjoy without posting a photo of your fun time on social media. Live for yourself. 

Fake Activism

Everyone is an activist on social media. They have opinions about how the country should run, how we should fight climate change, and how people must behave with each other. They will raise their concerns against rapes, crimes, corruption, terrorism, racism, and pollution every day. No one is morally perfect. We all do stupid shit and we all have some weird beliefs. So, why is everyone trying to prove that they are the nicest human being on the planet on social media? Noone does shit in practice to make the world a better place but we all pretend to be rebels and activists like Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi on social media. 

Fuck social media !

Hey, buddy! Just wanted to tell you that I don’t care about you. I don’t care if you win a lottery or go to Paris on a vacation. I don’t want to know how you celebrated your weekend or what you ate for breakfast. I don’t need to know that you went to a movie with your friends last night. I don’t need to know that it's your mother's birthday today. I don’t need to read your thoughts on the current political situation of the country. I don’t need any of your updates. I don’t need you. We can hardly call ourselves friends. You never called me to wish me on my birthday. I have never been to your home. I don’t know your family. I don’t know you. I know your name. I have seen you in person. I have talked with you a few times. We might have shared few common friends. Hell, we might have had fun together once or twice. But buddy I don’t really need anything more than that from you. You are not that important to my life and I know you won't notice even if I was gone. 

The sad reality of social media is that it is the most anti-social thing that exists in modern society. It is frightening that the entire world, everyone I know is engrossed in it. I have known that I am an addict for a long time now. Lately, I have started noticing that everyone around me is no different. Even my parents who started using the internet just a couple of years ago are hooked on their devices. It makes me anxious. It worries me to my core. I wish I could change this.

I gave up social media in 2018. I deleted both Facebook and Instagram. I was off the grid for 9 months. For 9 long months, I didn’t wake up to the hellos of social media. I didn’t post anything. I didn’t share any part of my life with the world and I didn’t have to watch anyone share their life away as well. It was the calmest and most joyous period of my life. I want you to know how I felt during that period. I didn’t miss social media at all. I was doing my thing. (I need to admit that I was hooked on YouTube after I quit social media, but I think it is the better of the two evils. You can get bored on YouTube, but you can scroll through social media for eternity.)  My grades improved. I started working on being better. I came out of depression. Yes, I was depressed, and quitting social media was one of the biggest steps which helped me get out of it. My relationships with my friends improved. I got into a deep and satisfying romantic relationship which brought so many positive changes in my life. I am thankful that I chose to quit social media. I am glad that it allowed me to change my life for the better.

A 9-month hiatus did me a world of good, but I was eventually dragged back. It is hard to choose a lifestyle when everyone around you is living differently. I didn’t get back because I missed it. I came back because everyone else was on it except me. I had built strong self-control during the time I was away. So, I thought I could handle the temptations and not fall down the rabbit hole. It didn’t happen immediately. But 1 year down the line after rejoining social media, I was doing the same stupid shit that I was doing before I quit. But there was a difference, it was worse the second time. 

As I have mentioned in my book as well, I am not proud of my social media activity. I am a compulsive user. Even when I study for 10 hours a day, I am on social media for 4-5 hours. When I am not studying, I am on it for the entire day. I have taken every online test out there to determine my level of attachment with social media and I have gotten the same result every time. I am an addict. 

Let me correct that for you - I was an addict. I quit it in 2018 because I started noticing signs of addiction. But when I came back in 2019, my addiction reached unprecedented heights. I now know what an alcoholic or a cocaine addict must feel like. The chemistry in the brain is the same for all addictions. Like all addictions, this addiction took a toll on my life too. 

I had to delete my accounts during exam time because I just couldn’t focus if I had an active account. The pull was just too massive for my weakening self-control. I did well in my exams. I studied with dedication and was happy with my results. After every exam, I had to create a new social media account because the old one was already gone. My friends, relatives, and people I know started getting irritated with me. They would get my friend requests every once in a while. It appeared from the outside that I had multiple Facebook accounts, but the truth is I had already deleted my old account because I needed to focus on something. The sad part was that I couldn’t stay away from it for long. I had to go back and I desperately wanted to be back every time my exams were over. An alcoholic can stay away from alcohol only for some time, then he needs the dose and he will do anything to get what he craves.

The pandemic broke me. It broke my lifestyle. It broke my habits. It broke my flow. It changed me and my addiction got worse every day. The pandemic took my addiction to such an extreme that my depression resurfaced. I lost my peace and I felt like I have undone all the progress that I had made. The start of the pandemic was not that bad. I wrote a book within a month and published it, yes a fucking book. This was a huge achievement, but it also became a curse. I had one more reason to keep using social media. 

I was on social media all the time after my book got published. I was promoting my book on it, posting stuff related to my book. I couldn’t argue with me on this because I was promoting my book, but it turns out it was an excuse to keep getting the dopamine hits from social media. For a first-time young author, I consider my book to be successful. I am yet to receive a negative review from my readers. I know it is not the best book ever written. Hell, I could have done so much better with it, but I am satisfied with the outcome. I became mildly famous on social media with various news outlets covering my book and I gave a few interviews as well. 

 The thing that struck me like a thunderbolt was that most of my Facebook friends didn’t actually buy my book. 90% of my readers are people I don’t know. Only a few people I know bought my book and supported me. Only 10-20 of my thousand Facebook friends (which consisted of my friends from school, college, university, and my relatives) bought my book to support me. That is around 2%. This was a huge realization for me. I am not upset with anyone for not buying my book. It is a personal choice and many people are just not into reading. There was something deeper in this. Very few people actually congratulated me on my book. Very few people actually cared. I got plenty of likes and followers but most of them were just there. They just didn’t care about me and it turns out I didn’t care about them either. The illusion of social media undressed in front of my very eyes. 

Out of the 100s of people you call friends on Facebook, you only have around 3-4 whom you can call your real friends. Out of the 100s of relatives with whom you are connected on social media, only a few care about you and want to see your progress. Our life actually revolves around a very few people (20-25 max which comprises of your closest friends and family). What is the use of having hundreds of lifeless statues on your friend list? When we are consumed by the 100s of unnecessary people on social media, we fail to prioritize the few people who actually matter. I don’t need to see what some school friend of mine was doing on his weekend. I don’t need to see their life. I am not sure if I will ever meet him/her again. What is the use of feeding your brain with updates of 100s of people who don’t matter?

I also started seeking validation from the outside like never before. I knew that my book was good,  I knew that I was smart but I wanted someone else to validate my thoughts. I started measuring the success of my book with my likes and followers. It hurt me when a random chick revealing 60% of her boobs on TikTok had more followers than me. It hurt me when some flop actress had more Instagram followers than a beloved author like Buddhisagar. I started getting frustrated. Fuck you, everyone. It was a mistake to expect admiration from hypnotized people. My readers have sent me the sweetest reviews and appreciation for my work. I was wrong to expect the same from my so-called friends on Facebook. 

The conclusion is plain and simple. I don’t need more than 10-20 people in my life to be happy. My entire life revolves around them and everyone else can go fuck themselves. I don’t need to see your photos. I don’t need your constant updates. I don’t need to see who you married or where you went on a vacation. And I was a bigger stupid than all of you to keep my life on display for all of you to watch and judge. I am not blaming everyone else. I am the bigger culprit here. I chose to share my life with strangers. I chose to share my moments with strangers. I tried to befriend strangers. I tried to seek validation for my success from strangers. 

I know people come up with hundreds of reasons to use social media. I am not going to ask anyone to quit social media. I am not going to ask anyone to rethink their online activities. But we must all think about the benefits and harms of things that we are consuming and I don’t see any benefit of social media for me on a personal level. It is just hindering my growth and eating up my creative space. I declare that I am getting off all social media permanently and never coming back again. 

I want to celebrate my success in private. I want to fight my struggles in private. I don’t want to rent my brain space to your ideas, thoughts, and photos. To everyone who has ever been my friend on Facebook and Instagram, I want to tell you that I don’t care about you and I am not your friend. I will always want all of you to do great things in life but I don’t want to share my life with you anymore. I am cutting all of you off. When you get off social media, you actually realize that nobody misses you. When I was off the grid for 9 months, no one called me and asked- "hey, buddy why are you not on social media?". I have a few friends and close relatives who will always find a way to be a part of my life even though I am not on social media. 

Nobody has the fucking guts to share their failures on social media. Nobody has the guts to publicly declare about a breakup but everyone celebrates their relationships on social media like they are the happiest couple on the planet. It's frightening that we have to share every success of ours on social media. Why are we pretending that we have perfect lives? Why are we pretending to be happy? Why are we pretending to have fun? Why do we want to look rich and beautiful on social media? Why do we want to shove our achievements down the throats of other people?  

Social media is an illusion. It is a dopamine factory that is supplying loads of it to our brains with constant likes, comments, and updates. The world is getting disconnected every day. We have been disconnected from ourselves. I became someone I was not on social media. I did things that were against my belief system. I killed my original self to share my life with strangers. Fuck that. 

I will stay in touch with a few people who care about me. I will send them pictures of my adventures in private because they are the ones who actually care. I will do my thing and chase my dreams and not expect any validation from anyone. I want to be present at the moment. I want to take photos for memory and not share them on social media. I want to live a private life. I don’t need to wish my wife happy birthday on Facebook to prove that I love her. I don’t need to show off my house, wife, car, or clothes to you to enjoy the fruits of success. I have shared too much already. You are not going to find me easily from now on. I will be hard to reach. I won't be there to like your pictures or comment congratulations on your success. If I care about you, I might call you and congratulate you.

I know I can gain thousands of followers on social media. I know I can be a social media star. I know how to gain attention and I know I will be big in the future. The thing is I don't need anyone else's validation to be happy anymore. I can't sacrifice my peace for likes and followers. I don't care if anyone appreciates my work and life. I need to appreciate it. I need to be satisfied with myself. Your opinion just doesn't matter.

  I have realized the magnitude of the social media illusion. I have experienced every harmful effect of social media. I have fucked up my mental health trying to fit in. I don’t care if I become the odd one out if I am not on social media. I need focus and discipline and mental clarity to be what I want to be. I will achieve it and celebrate with my closest people in private. If I fail, I will at least fail in private. 

When my biographer researches my life, I don’t want him to think that I was stupid. My social media activity doesn’t resonate with the type of person I want to be. Imagine if Einstein was on Facebook all the time posting photos of his adventures and liking stupid pics of stupid people. It is extremely implausible. 

I am escaping this whirlpool. If I can stay away from it for 9 months, I can stay away from it forever. I don’t care if you come out. Everyone must experience it first hand to realize that you are wasting your life with likes and followers. Social media is not the only enemy, mind it. I still have to fight youtube and internet addiction in general, but one addiction at a time. Our devices are empowering us and limiting us simultaneously. Most people don’t realize the harms and are rationalizing their rampant consumption. I worry for them. I weep for humanity. I am saving myself. Save yourself before it's too late…..