When Facebook and its fother app family members, Instagram and WhatsApp, were inaccessible on Monday, lives were disrupted, businesses were cut off from customers and a lot of people were going cold turkey, reminding us just how dependent the world has become on social media.
The following morning, I put out a question on my Instagram story asking how people felt about the worldwide blink out, surprisingly the majority of people welcomed the break.
I myself was busy attending to a family crisis, so I didn’t actually notice, but in the morning while reading about it, it got me thinking about a world without any social media. No more daily uploading pictures of you or how your day is being carried out. It equally means no more likes and comments from your Instagram or Facebook profiles. There would be no need for you to make your ‘feed’ look cool and visually appealing, no more struggling to make your pictures get the most likes and comments, or for your videos and lives to be most viewed. In real life, the best picture of you would be seen with the most sophisticated camera of all time called the human eyes.
It would mean no more posting on Facebook about how your interesting social life or venting about ignorant people. It would mean no more ranting about how or how your best friend became your worst enemy or covid restrictions. It could also mean true communication with family members, going out meeting people and getting to know them through a new different avenue rather than what is portrayed behind a screen.
A world without social media could allow you more time to meet and getting to know people. Maybe your phone wwould no longer be the first thing you will look for in the morning or the last thing at night. Maybe at gatherings and dinners, you would feel more present without social media because you don’t have to constantly photograph everything, instead we’d live the moment, enjoy it and rely on our memories to remind us how lovely it was.
Would a world without social media be less socially volatile than the world right now? Would we have the stress-free existence of being ourselves, rather than having to perform as the characters some have created? I’ll let you answers those questions. Would love to hear your thoughts, you can e-mail me on [email protected]
