A New Way to Be Social

Social media isn’t real.

But the people on it are.

Yes, I understand that much of what we see online is a highlight reel.

Curated moments. Perfect angles. Carefully chosen words. And, increasingly, things that may not even be real at all.

But I think we spend so much time talking about what’s fake on social media that we overlook something much more important.

There are real people behind those screens.

Real people who are increasingly incentivized to spend more time interacting online than sitting across from another human being.

That is a massive shift.

And I don’t think we fully understand what it’s doing to us.

Anxiety.

Sadness.

Isolation.

Comparison.

But wait.

I don’t think this has to be another social media is destroying society speech.

Because I don’t think the answer is necessarily to delete everything and disappear.

What if we learned how to do both?

What if we could have a social presence online without allowing it to replace our social lives offline?

Because let’s face it.

I could post the weird picture of myself.

I could tell you when I’m having a terrible day.

I could tell you I’m struggling at the exact moment a picture makes it look like everything is going great.

And some people do.

But most of us won’t.

Instead, we turn on the camera.

We choose the angle.

We put on the face.

And slowly, we build a world where we control almost everything people get to know about us.

What we show.

What we hide.

What we believe.

Who gets access.

Who gets removed.

It can start becoming a world built entirely around us.

That feels pretty good for a while.

Until the real world catches up.

We start dropping friendships because they’re inconvenient.

We value the opinions of faces on a screen more than people sitting across from us.

We decide which conversations we’re willing to have based on whether they make us comfortable.

We can mute.

Unfollow.

Block.

Scroll.

And find someone else who agrees.

It can start to feel like a utopia.

But I think it can become a trap.

Because almost everything you’ve built in that world depends on things you don’t actually control.

A platform.

An algorithm.

Followers.

Attention.

A screen.

And ironically, the more successful you become at getting people to look at you through that screen, the easier it can become to spend less time looking at the people you actually love.

So what now?

I don’t think we stop posting.

I don’t think we throw our phones away.

I don’t think we pretend social media can’t be used for something good.

Maybe we simply create a new rule:

You can’t have one without the other.

Build the online presence.

But build the dinner table too.

Post the video.

Then go sit with somebody.

Grow the audience.

But don’t stop growing friendships.

Share your thoughts with thousands of people.

But make sure there are still a few people who know you when the camera is off.

Sure, there will still be algorithms.

Selling.

Followers.

Metrics.

All of it.

But at least we’re getting back in front of people again.

And maybe there’s one question worth asking ourselves before we hit post:

If all of these people were sitting in front of me instead of behind a screen, would I still be this person?

If the answer is no, maybe that’s worth paying attention to.