Gaps

It's becoming more and more real to me how insufficiently we connect with friends, family, and acquaintances on social media. Facebook and other connectors are truly terrible at letting me know what's important in someone's life. It's disheartening enough for me to want to throw in the towel and give up, but then what would I have? Emails? Letters? *Gasp* meeting in person?! For an introvert, setting up friend dates is actually pretty stressful to me. I have to really like you and miss you or else my Wanna-curl-up-at-home-with-a-book-instead takes over.

Websites like Facebook and Instagram are really just gaps. Big, empty holes between two cute pictures of your baby and your Christmas tree.

What is really happening in between?

What amount of effort did they exert to get that perfect picture? What events occurred in that person's life between those two generic, happy posts? Most people choose not to share much on social media. There's especially an awkward stigmatism towards getting personal, or sharing bad news, or just plain news.

We all have that one friend who posts a play-by-play of every single thing he/she is doing at every minute of every day, and what his/her kids ate for every meal and when they last went to the bathroom. We shun them for being so embarrassingly public, for being "News Feed Whores." (I will further abbreviate as NFWs.) Their life is constantly streamed online for all to see.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, social media has created a culture where it's awkward to share personal, negative things that happen to us. We scroll down so fast that news about the weather is right next to a new baby or a tragic death in the family, and we have become desensitized. So if we share that we have the flu or break a leg (which could have been the most miserable few days/weeks we can remember), we might get a handful of "likes" if we spin the post in a positive way, maybe a few sympathetic comments. But most people won't bat an eye.

In fact, I suspect this blog post itself won't get that many hits unless I put a really alluring picture to go with it. Or make the title super click-bait or announce some huge news. So here's a picture I googled so 10 more of you will read this.

We are either inundated with way too much information from our NFWs that when something very important happens to them, we miss it,

OR

We just see pretty, smiling pictures of babies and families and yummy dinners but nothing about what is really going on in their life.

For example, how many of you know that I spent all day at the ER all day yesterday with my mother and baby and thought my world was literally ending? That I had a complete anxiety breakdown in the parking lot and Scott was helping me breathe through the phone while he was stuck at work?

Do you know one of your friends may have a severe auto-immune disease, or another one of your friends battles an eating disorder?

How much do you know about your friends' new babies other than how much they weigh and if they're sleeping through the night?

How much do you want to know?

When we log in to Instagram or Facebook, etc, what are we hoping to see? Pinterest-like pictures of smiling people that make us happy? Political rants that we can readily add our voice to? Or do we want to know what's truly going on in the lives of as many of our friends as possible?

How do we cure our ever-shortening attention-span to really reach people and connect? In our hunger for fast, vital information, is there a better way to use these social media outlets? Will we always demand well-edited pictures and 30 second video clips to speak to each other?

I get so excited to get a random message from an old friend I haven't talked to in years, and then I burst into tears when after we exchanged a few words I find out my "random" message was really just a pitch to get me to buy their makeup or their LuLaRoe.

I appreciate and admire the candor and vulnerability of many people on my news feed who precariously balance sharing their big ups and downs without being NFWs. How do you do it?

Maybe during this #LightTheWorld Christmas challenge we can reach out to a random person on Facebook (preferably not a former boyfriend/girlfriend) and really get to know what's going on in their gaps. Maybe meet up for fro-yo or lunch. Or would that be too awkward?

Consider this my open invitation to be more raw, more open, and more real on social media. If you don't want to share that much info with "strangers," then maybe you have too many Facebook friends. Maybe you could separate your friends list into "friends" and "acquaintances" and save the cute Pinterest-type posts just for the acquaintances. You can control exactly how much you share and who you share it with (do any of you already do this?).

Or maybe you can start a blog. I would love to read it.