An Open Letter to Selfie Nation

Dear friends,

I have a complaint to lodge. This isn’t anything against you, but it’s against your actions. I’m afraid we’ve had a breach of social media etiquette, and I must address it tout suite. I’m seeing too many pictures of you. Just you. Taken up close or from a distance. Above your head or below. In the bathroom or on the street. So. Many. Pictures. That’s right. I’m complaining about your selfies.

“But Alex! Why do you care?! If I wanna post 10 pictures of myself per day, it doesn’t affect you at all!”  Oh no no, friends. You’re quite mistaken. If you’re takin’ selfies, they are most certainly affecting me. I’ve given you precious space in my Facebook or Instagram feed and that space is not to be violated with an overabundance of images of you. Sure, I could defriend you or unfollow you but I truly like you, dear friends. I do. In real life, I can barely tell you really love that ONE SIDE of your face so much because you seem completely normal in regular conversations!

I just don’t understand why you do this. Help me understand. Do the likes and comments pick you up after a bad day? Are you keeping a log of your aging, minute by minute? Are you pursuing a career in modeling? Have you been transported to a place where there are no other humans around? Is it because you think your friends, like me, really like it? Because if that’s the case, I’m gonna need you to stop.

Please don’t think it’s that I don’t like seeing pictures of you actually doing things or with your friends. Au contraire, I find them to be a relief – I started  thinking you were actually without fellow humans after all the pictures of just yourself. Please, bring on the pictures of your fun activities. I want to see more of your adventures. And a close-up picture of your face whilst on your adventure does not count. Maybe even some scenery in the background to illustrate where you actually are. Perhaps you and a nice tree. Even that would be better.

And it’s not that your looks are bad. Not at all. You are all quite beautiful, but I fear it might be becoming obvious just how much you think that about yourself, as well. And it’s not that I don’t like looking at your beauty, but I don’t need it in my feed every damn day, sometimes twice or three times (seriously, some days I feel like I see your faces more than I see my own). I just don’t. You don’t change. I could literally keep that one picture as a reminder of your beauty for at LEAST a week before I need to see another selfie.

That’s right! I’m not even saying please stop altogether, just stop the onslaught. You’re gonna give me a twitch. Do you really wanna give me a twitch? No. You don’t. So please, make it stop. I write this because I care and because friends don’t let friends overpost selfies.

xoxoxo

Alex

 

p.s. One last addition to my plea… Do you really wanna be in the same boat as Amanda Bynes, selfie-poster extraordinaire? I think we all know the answer to that question.

Work-Life Balance and Social Media

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted on here – apologies to you fine folks who became followers of mine after my last post about Social Media and Age. As you might imagine, my lack of contributing to this blog has inspired tonight’s topic. See, I work in social media for a living. My job consists of being on Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, and Instagram all day. And that’s just the social platforms — if you throw in all the analytics tools and monitoring platforms I’m also on, combined with the blogs and news sources I read to ensure our client is up-to-date on the newest things, we’re talking 8 long hours of being glued to a computer. Even more than that, it’s 8 hours of being highly connected. Not just to friends and family, but sometimes complete strangers.

Needless to say, it gets exhausting.

I’m not saying my job is particularly more exhausting than other jobs. I’m well aware that there are many other professions that are just as tiring if not way more tiring than mine. But the unique quality of my job is that interconnectedness I have with the outside world 8 hours a day. No, more than 8 hours a day. Almost every waking moment.

See, that’s the other thing about working in social media: it’s hard to get away from it. Think about how many emails you have to resist checking on your phone when you get home – a lot, right? Okay, so imagine that, then add the Facebook notifications, Twitter pushes, and Instagram alerts, each one needing to be read. And we’re not even talking about your personal notifications. Throw those in, and you start to spend nearly your entire day on the internet. And then you start looking a little bit like this:

But let me be clear: I really do love my job. Given the nature of social media, it’s constantly changing and keeping me on my toes. There is always something to learn – always a new challenge to figure out. The nerdy part of me loves the analytical side of things – the fact that you can directly measure the affect your content is having on the world. I wouldn’t trade a minute of my job, but just because I love it doesn’t mean I should spend my every waking moment doing it. I love a lot of things that I shouldn’t spend my entire day doing: watching crappy reality TV, taking a hot shower, working out, eating golden Oreos… All of these things would obviously be detrimental to me if I did them all day, yet I have no problem stopping them when it’s time.

So why is it so hard to shut down the need to work long after it’s time to do so? Because my personal time activities and my work activities have become seemingly the same activity.

Please don’t get me wrong. I do plenty of things in my personal time that do not involve my computer. I play frisbee and go hiking and hang out with friends. But by the end of the day, if I’m being totally honest with myself, I’ve usually checked Facebook at least three times. It’s just natural, sometimes I don’t even think about it.

But two weekends ago I went down to the beach for Memorial Day weekend, where we camped on the sand. There were no electrical outlets so minimal interaction with my phone was important, in case an emergency occurred and I needed it. As a result, I had no idea what was happening in the outside world. I only knew about our little bubble on the beach with the wild horses. It was beautiful. The feeling of being totally oblivious was so liberating, I found that in just a matter of days, the constant feeling of needing to be connected to the outside world had sort of melted away. And as much as I love what I do, it was something I needed.

It’s hard to get away from the outside world. We have phones that ping us whenever we get a phone call, text message, email, Facebook comment, retweet, favorite, new follower, etc. Combine that with just the sheer amount of time we spend on our computers and you can never unplug. And, quite frankly, there are some days I relish that. Like I said, I truly do love what I do. But it doesn’t mean I should let it get in the way of other things I truly love to do, as well. If I hadn’t spent those days disconnected down at the beach, I would have never known just how burnt out I was and, some days, just how much I’m missing out on around me. And that’s why I haven’t been here, friends. I burnt myself out. It won’t happen again.

So take a step back from the computer and go do what you love – completely shut off from the world of the internet. Even if it’s just for an hour a day. I promise it’ll be here waiting when you get back.