Monday, February 17, 2014

What's Up?

As you know by now if you follow my blog, I have been struggling not only with thoughts about content, but also in which direction I would like to take my blog given that my thoughts are focused almost 24/7 on helping my husband find a job and my son's impending graduation from high school. I obsess about the big move on to the college years,  but I tear up too much thinking about that so I try to get those thoughts out of my head ASAP. Seriously, we do have a very l-o-n-g six months ahead until his departure in August ( at least that is my story and I am sticking with it). So, sitting here on this snowy day, I said, "Self (as I often refer to myself upon reflection), what the heck do you want to talk about today?  The dismal weather?  Nah, we are all fed up with that, nothing new there. The job search?  Bleh, talk about a turn-off.  Oh, I know.  How about the world according to Facebook and Instagram?"  Time for a reality check.

Can you imagine if life was really like the one people portray on social media?  A perfect world filled with photos of amazing and stress-free vacations, brilliant children always making the right choices, fabulous parties and everyone looking model perfect all the time.  Sometimes I find myself getting caught up in all the perfection and I take an emotional hit for not being able to keep up with everything I see others doing or how they look doing it, especially when I am feeling and looking far from perfect myself.  I battle with the old catch-22 where this is concerned as I know checking out my Facebook or Instagram feed might be a mine field some days but, if I don't check it, I feel as though I might be missing out on something.  Funny how that works,no?

I suppose the bottom line is that a person's life is not defined by his social media feed and the pictures and snippets added to a status update.  Oddly, I suppose the voyeur in me cannot look away and while I do get caught up in the superficial aspect of it all, more oft than not I know people don't always look amazing.  The photo of the perfectly dressed and coiffed children probably took an hour to get and included breakdowns from both children and parents.  People are people with both good days and bad and the reality of social media is simply which persona one chooses to put forth on any given day.  Unless of course, you are someone like Ivanka Trump who looks gorgeous every day of the week (wink wink).



2 comments:

  1. Interesting post. You should listen to this NPR article about the book "Alone Together": http://www.npr.org/2012/10/18/163098594/in-constant-digital-contact-we-feel-alone-together

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    1. Good article. I see evidence of the 'alone together' dynamic with my middle schooler. The art of conversation has indeed become an art.

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