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Social Media: The Postmodernist’s Drug: Op-Ed

Kyle T.

Imagine a cocaine addict having to carry around a gram of cocaine in her pocket all day every day. Then imagine her having to pull out that bag of cocaine and open it up and smell it and stare at it for, on average, two hours a day (statistical average American daily phone screentime usage). Further, imagine the cocaine has intelligence, and has constantly-evolving, ever-expanding vivid imagery designed to activate deeply embedded instinctual reactions in her brain such as longing, envy, jealousy, arousal, lust, anger, impulse, inferiority, loneliness, persuasion, etc. etc.

There you have the Leviathan that is Social Media. And I’ll tell you, as a former cocaine addict, that if I was told I had to live with a bag of cocaine in my pocket, at my ready, 24 hours a day, I’d throw in the towel right now—which is, for the most part, what I’ve done with Social Media.

Time and time again I have failed to live soberly with Social Media; for me, it’s just too easy. Knowing that there are apps specifically designed for meeting people for sex is a frontier I cannot participate in. I am truly grateful I did not have that kind of accessibility in my early- and mid-twenties. Acting out then still had the barrier of meeting people face-to-face.

What little Social Media I use (LinkedIn being my only accessible SM currently), has been much more of an acting out venue than anything else. Things like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, etc.—I’ve thrown in the towel on those—not only because of the ease in which those platforms lend me the ability to act out, swiftly and successfully I must add, but also because of the turgid wasteland of bloviated opinions, humblebrags, peacocking, and morbidly-excessive, self-congratulating solipsism that has grown out of these platforms. Additionally, I cannot expose myself to the marketing Hydra that permeates these platforms. They are highly suggestible and I am easily influenced.

In all honesty, I can’t recall a time I spent time on Facebook and felt better afterwards. It’s been well over a year since I’ve rooted that media out of my life. I’ve been on and off Instagram, lately I’ve been off for several months because of the way it lights up my brain when I look at it. Too much excitability. As for the dating apps, they rival the potency of cocaine without a doubt. When I have relapsed on one of those (DAs), and my eyes were locked in a fixed, semi-fugue gaze; swiping, swiping, swiping, staring, fixating, feeling vibrations, dings, alerts, texts, pictures, people dressed in pornographic outfits, sexual entendres and puerile intent, I felt just like I felt after a cocaine bender—paranoia and all. In fact, cocaine can’t compete with the DAs. The best cocaine can do chemically is simulate the neuron activation media such as T——, B——, H——, et. al. engender in heavy, high-definition dosages.   

My last bastion of SM is LinkedIn, which, I’ll admit, I’ve used far more to check the acting-out pulse than for actual business...and I’m in business. As an addict, the mission statements of SM platforms mean very little to me. Just like anything else. Every non-digital venue for me is a hunting ground when I’m spiritually unfit. But there’s only so much time in a day. And physically, there’s only so many places I can be within that day. But Social Media is with me all day, everywhere, accessible any time, and with that wonderful passivity my addict brain cherishes so much. The comfort of my disease rests right there in the fact that, through a medium like SM, I’m already emotionally disengaged and safe. Hell, if I don’t like someone, I don’t even have to say goodbye—-I can just Ghost.  

But it’s not all bad news for SM. I believe it can be lived with in a healthy way. And the truth is, most of us will have to learn to live with it, as it is becoming more and more difficult to exist in this culture without it. It’s become a staple of most business and marketing operations. And it’s professional presence can be a great boon for branding and prospect outreach. Additionally, the entertainment of platforms like YouTube and FB have given us millions of hilarious videos where we can seek some respite from this otherwise grave life. SM has provided me with thousands of laughs and hours of enjoyment. It’s given us the ability to connect with long-lost friends and family, and the ability to share our lives on a grand scale.

I think some of the deepest problems I have with SM is that I feel I don’t really have much of a life to show off or share. I wouldn’t really want people to see how I live, where I live, what I do, the kind of money I have, the zero girlfriends I’ve had in almost a decade, and the near zero fun vacations I’ve taken in the past few years. My last vacation was a trip to rehab, and I really can’t compete with the friends of mine who Honeymoon in Tahiti and visit Europe annually with their fiances and spouses. I find it difficult that I can’t share all the joys of my private recovery life on SM. It’s not really appropriate. This is the primary reason I don’t use SM, I just don’t really have anything to show off, and seeing everyone else’s framed lives in beautiful vivid color, snapshots of only the great times, is very difficult for someone like me who is prone to loneliness and misery. I compare too much. I’m not spiritually fit enough for it. For that reason, I tend to act out more on SM than participate in a healthy way. Until I am spiritually fit enough, I will have to abstain.

In conclusion, I enjoyed life without SM much more than life with SM. Maybe it was because I was younger and happier, but I feel that there wasn’t so much hatred, vitriol and accusatory insanity back then. While hyperconnectivity has some advantages, I believe that time away has far better advantages. I doubt I need to know what everyone thinks and does on a 24-hour cycle.

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