9 Reasons I Would Disinvent Social Media

My Halle and I frequently engage on the subject of “random questions to ask friends.” Occasionally it turns romantic, it’s kind of cute: whatever. On this particular day, the question was: “If you could disinvent one thing what would it be?” I didn’t even think about it: social media.

Of course, I could hone in on a lot of different negative things about technology. But while they are pretty much all inherently time wasters, none is such a source of evil from so many vantage points. I’m going to go through some of the specific negatives for social media.

1. It’s a time waster. Do you know what my dad did when he was a kid? He went out and played basketball. Baseball. Hockey if it was winter. All day every day when there was free time. Now we’re on our social media. And you might just scroll through your story or board or whatever fancy thing you do once in a while but the fact is it’s a gold mine for distractions and of nothing good. We’re wasting time. You don’t gain skills from it. You gain almost nothing from it and, in an era where there are ten thousand other ways to communicate you don’t need it. People need hobbies. If your hobby is video games, that’s sad but it’s better than scrolling through low-quality photos of other people’s Red Robin meals. You can’t tell me you didn’t have time to do your homework or read your Bible and at the same time stay active on Snappy Chatty, Instagram and whatever else is popular these days.

2. The stuff that’s on there is useless. I don’t have social media (and each day I grow more convinced not to get it) but I’ve seen it. Evan shows me videos from people of the most ridiculous thing. This is where the quote comes in. If we used Facebook and Instagram to ask people for help when we’re moving, announce a marriage or pregnancy or birth, and show people our tours of the world - even a funny moment in child-raising that would be fine, maybe even good. But we’re recording ourselves doing nothing. Diligently announcing to the world our laziness. Honestly, I want to see one teacher get snapchat and follow his/her students. You’d be shocked at what people are doing while they aren’t doing their homework. Memes galore, most not even funny. Remix videos of dipping ice cream. I mean talk about a waste of time. I can’t even handle it.

3. Social media is full of negativity. I do have a Pinterest account which I use a little bit and what I’ve seen people pin is just long lists of depressing thoughts, wanting to die, wanting to give up… and I understand feeling those things and needing a source to vent, but finding two hundred posts like that and just pinning them one after the other, day after day you start to believe them and you start to get discouraged yourself. You aren’t solving your problems, you’re just depressing yourself and I’m not sure why you’d want to engage your time like that.

4. Social media is full of lies. This is coming kind of from a Christian perspective and also just from a neutral observer: modern ideas are kind of crappy. I’m not saying all of them. There are things about the 21st century and ideas we have now that are amazing. But on the whole, it’s pretty crappy how far society has deviated from simple truths and social media is full of ideas that are confusing to kids and teenagers who are still developing their world views. It’s a destructive force in this way.

5. Social media is a force that doesn’t bring joy. Ever get off of Instagram and think “Wow I’m glad I just spent half an hour doing that?” Me neither. In fact, the primary feeling is, “Holy crap, I just wasted a half an hour!” And no doubt, at 10:00, when you’re ready to turn in for the night, you wish you had that half an hour. There’s no happiness that comes out of it. There’s no happiness that comes out of its ideas. People are looking for joy and happiness in things that simply can’t bring them and the end result is that we have a bunch of discouraged people with low-self esteem. Here me out, social media is not the only cause of depression in teens today, but it is, I would think, the leading one and not because of the pressures it puts on kids (I’ll get there) but because it’s an empty use of time that leaves people feeling well, empty.

6. Social media is a competition. I saw a post on Pinterest that said: “I need feminism because my twelve-year-old sister is starving herself to keep her image,” and what I thought was: your twelve-year-old sister isn’t feeling the pressures from men or some perceived inequality (not trying to get political here, just making a point). Your twelve-year-old sister is upset because she’s on social media (illegally I might add) and she’s watching other people post things about their bodies, or other people’s bodies and feeling pressure. That’s one example. But really all of social media is a contest. Get the most likes, get the most views… it’s another social status and if you don’t have it, or you don’t have as many “friends” (ladies and gentlemen you can’t have 1,000 friends. You can’t have 500. Hate to be the bearer of bad news but that’s a fact.) then you are a loser. I’m a loser cause I don’t have social media and I don’t care because it’s something I’ve thought through, but the peer pressure associated with it is devastating to young men and women who don’t need to hear that kind of crap and what stems from it is girls (and guys) putting pressures on themselves unlike any other generation in all of human history. How our bodies look is a competition. How we look on social media is a competition. Obviously eradicating social media doesn’t fix the problem of stress on teens. But it helps a lot.

7. Social media is dangerous. Fifty-year-old men are having their careers erased off of things that someone dug up from a time when they were drunk in college. No excuses to their crimes, but would you want to be judged for the person you were thirty years ago? Obviously social media wasn’t the convicting force for some of these stories we hear about: it didn’t even exist, but it is a force, and we’re going to see kids make mistakes on their screens that never goes away. You can tell teenagers that and tell them not to post anything that they wouldn’t want their grandma to see but popularity is on the line and trying to teach teenagers facts of life… very bad.

8. Privacy is wiped away. Everyone is in everyone else’s business. The internet is quite frankly very creepy and if you know what a person you met once in a Kroger is eating for dinner… I don’t like that.

9. Finally, social skills are wiped down the drain. Remember when kids could have normal conversations with people. Remember when we met people and actually talked to them. Why bother? Why meet up with anyone when you know every detail of their life anyway? But the thing is, face to face interaction is good for us, as humans, whether introverted or extroverted we crave face to face contact with other individuals and we don’t find it with social media.

Maybe you’ve gotten this far and agreed and thought “interesting points,” but what am I really supposed to do with that? I mean I like my social media. Social media serves a purpose and with that allotted purpose it’s not a bad thing. But the problem I have is the obsession of social media and of our screens in general just destroying everything that makes us human. And I’m suggesting that we ought to do something about that. Something radical. You have to make that step however you see fit. But I just presented every gram of evidence I can conjure up and I don’t see how you can argue with me. Social media is doing more harm than good. So we can let the addiction destroy us or we can turn it off.

“Turn it off? Are you kidding me, Braxton? I can’t just turn it off! I’ll lose my precious streaks!” Take a week off. Seriously. Take a week. I took this last week and powered my phone off and stuck it in a drawer and didn’t take it out all week. Do that with your social media or whatever electronic thing is wasting your time and taring apart your relationships etc. I guarantee you that at the end of the week, you’re going to be a lot less eager to take the phone out of the drawer than you think. Just try it. I dare you.

I promise you social media people, you are missing a lot in this world. Your story can wait. Turn it off and use the time you have for good. Who knows how much you’ll get?

Have a nice week, Braxton Schieler