We need to start seeing a lot less of each other. I’m sorry, I know this is unexpected. We’ve had some great times together, laughing over silly pictures of cats, taking part in weird memes, filling out polls, becoming indignant over political disagreements, and even–oddly enough–occasionally learning something about the lives of our friends and family and communicating with people we care about.
The thing is, Social Media, most of what you offer is just noise. I started seeing you looking for true social interaction, and while there has been some of that, it seems to be less and less every day.
I’d say it was me and not you, but that would be a lie. It is you, Social Media. I’ve spent the last three weeks barely seeing you, and it has been a joy. A joy. I locked myself away in hotel room in Pennsylvania and wrote more words in one weekend than I had in the two months previous. I went up north to the Gunflint Lodge and did all the preparation I needed to jump back into the novel I set aside in late August. I spent time with friends and family. I worked, interacted with people, had fun discussions, watched movies, played games, enjoyed good food, and relaxed.
When I got home from up north and logged onto you, Social Media, my blood pressure went up, my stress levels increased, and not all the cats wearing bacon could make it better. At first I thought it might be the relentless political flag waving, which I have to admit has started to exhaust me. I’m tired of watching my liberal friends and family call my conservative friends and family knuckle dragging Neanderthals while my conservative friends and family call my liberal friends and family Nazi-Commie-Socialists who hate America and apple pie. I’m sick of the zero-sum, use versus them — but it was more than that. It was just…everything; entirely too much noise and almost no signal. And while I was away from you, I realized how little I actually cared about you these day, how most of the time I didn’t like you. How you take up my time and give very little in return.
So I think for everyone’s sanity, we need to see less of each other, Social Media. We can still get together, but far less than before. I have to do this, or else I might start to hate you. And yes, I see the irony of posting this break up letter to you on you, Social Media.
But really, thanks all the funny pictures of cats.