Social media makes it difficult to find genuine connectivity and relationships. Relationships consists of likes and retweets without any depth and vulnerability.
However, no amount of likes and retweets can replace the craving for genuine relationships.
Social media is not the only thing that has confused our definition of relationships. Our culture as a whole has strayed from genuine connectivity. Now we value followers instead of friendship and social media personas instead of vulnerability.
Not everyone is like this and not everyone cares about presenting a perfect social media persona. However, as a whole, our culture has become consumed with presenting the perfect pictures or capturing the best moments of our lives to share with others.
If we carry this into our relationships, we miss out on genuine connectivity. Nobody's life is perfect all the time. We all know this in the back of our minds but it takes someone saying, "I'm struggling." before we really realize how fundamentally imperfect we all are.
Genuine connectivity is about doing life, the highs and the lows, with a person; sticking it our through thick or thin; realizing the other person has faults we have to deal with.
Once you take away the likes and the retweets, what are you left with?
Do you have anything connecting you with these people?
Inside everyone is this need to belong, terrified of losing that connectivity. But social media is a delusional solution to that fear.
We would rather have the security of five hundred followers on Instagram than the uncertainty of a single relationship.
I fall into this trap so many times in a day. I don't know about you, but I'm tired of confusing social media with genuine connectivity. I want to create something more than "a perfect grid" on Instagram.
Creating genuine relationships is harder, more time consuming, and more uncertain. It's hard but totally worthwhile. It's what we crave. It's what we need.
