I haven’t made a final decision yet, but I’m considering unfollowing my close personal friends and family on social media. Not because I don’t like them. Quite the opposite, in fact.
I like them so much that I want to give them more than an occasional digital thumbs-up (or various digital emoji thingy) to signify my love and friendship. When someone announces their joys or their trials on social media, I might stop my doom-scrolling for a split second to give them a heart or a little caring face. And then I’ll scroll on. I did the thing. Clicked the button. I’m good, right? I care. See… I clicked.
Ugh, no…
A phone call or a text or stopping by their house with a casserole is the proper response. But in our digital age, we’ve relegated friendship and companionship to the click of a button.
I want to get to know their real selves more than their digital selves. It’s normal to compare my humble life with the life of celebrities and be bitter at them for being good-looking and rich and famous. It’s okay for me to be mad at news pundits who get paid millions to trigger my lizard brain. But I don’t want to do that with my friends and family anymore. I want to not know everything they’re doing or thinking. I don’t want them to be media that I consume.
I want to miss my friends and family more. Because that might prompt me to think, “You know what - I haven’t heard from so-and-so in a while. I wonder what they’re doing? I should call/text/email/swing by.”
The jury is still out on whether or not I’ll do this. It seems like such a drastic move. I’m probably overacting.
But, really… I want to keep in actual touch with my close family and friends. I want to learn more about their lives over coffee, a shared meal, and libations. Not via their social feeds.
Then again, maybe no one wants this. It seems like more and more people only want others to know their digital selves. Maybe this is more manageable for people today.
Just throwing this all out there. Any thoughts, leave them in the comments, please!
In Comfort + Joy,
Jonas
I believe we have an obsession with what people are 'doing' rather than with the essence of 'be'-ing'. I have personally never been interested in connecting into social media of any kind - and I have very little awareness of what friends and family are actually doing in their day to day activities... as is true of them with me. I believe I am on this planet for a far more important reason than for constant awareness of physical activities... but that is just my own weird personal take on the subject.
Love this! What truth!! I heard once that biblical hospitality can mean saying “here is ‘my’ time, I am giving some of it to you.” Like you said, how you quick and easy it is to leave a comment or “like”, but that’s not really giving any of your time into the other person. What a powerful message. Thanks, Jonas!