Recently, I attempted TikTok as part of my goal to come out of my shell online. I made six videos over six weeks. You can watch them here, if you’d like. What they showed me, as you will see, is that I’m not comfortable yet in front of a camera. I understand I’m not going to be perfect right out the gate, but even such a short exhibition leads back to questions of social media’s necessity in my life as a writer.
Social media can be used for personal and professional purposes. Having given up social media before I was twenty for the negative habits I was forming and the adverse side effects, I returned shortly after I finished my first novel, The Return of the Flame, in an attempt to set myself up for publication and to find readers.
Despite my best efforts to keep things professional and maintain control, it has proven quite impossible due to the magnetic pull of the applications. No matter how dedicated I am to get in and get out like my life depends on it, a metaphorical squirrel catches my eye. All it takes is a little curiosity and a swipe with my thumb. It’s a battle for my own will and focus, and how easily I slip from contributor to consumer.
Why put myself through it? Why risk having the applications on my phone when I know it is so easy to fall into bad habits of consumption? Why is it so hard for me to let go of the notion that I need social media professionally?
In short, if I have such an aversion to social media, I’d better have a good reason for spending my time doing it.
The answer to all of my questions is people. In its most basic form, social media connects us. Whether it’s meaningful connection is a different story, but by engaging this way, I gain access to countless people living on this planet.
The essential question is this: is the payoff worth the sacrifice?
For example, would I not benefit more from reading a book? Or writing? Or simply doing nothing at all? Yet the ease of finding content and scrolling infinitely attracts and traps the best of us.
Several months ago, I made a comparison that social media is like a birthday cake. It’s not a terrible metaphor, but at the end of the day, social media is a tool. A highly sophisticated tool that almost has a mind of its own. We must ask ourselves whether the tool is working for or against us. Freeing us to advance our purpose or enslaving us to hours of sugar induced sedation.
My cake of choice is YouTube, though this tool has taught me much over the years. Without it, I would have never learned how to play The Beatles songs on the piano or heard hours of educational videos on science and history and literature. Yet herein lies the problem: How do we measure when a tool is no longer serving us, but the other way around? Life is about balance, yet it becomes increasingly difficult to strike that balance.
I can use social media to reach people, but I am one of millions doing the same. People may consume whatever I share, and with it, all the rest. Of course, no one can ever achieve that degree of consumption, which means for all of us who scroll, we only find the end once we are able to pull ourselves from it.
In a recent YouTube video I watched, one speaker commented on the early days of the platform. There was a greater sense of contribution for contribution’s sake. Now, people are too aware of what they might gain by doing it. It’s not just about sharing anymore.
Is social media aligned with my views as an individual and purpose as a writer? The dilemma I mentioned previously is that “to contribute content is to contribute to the problem. Yet without being in the place where people spend so much time, it’s becoming harder to reach them any other way.”
More than anything, I would like to be a person who has continuity of character, when what I say I believe and what I do are the same, i.e. authenticity. The problem with social media is that when we post, we seek specific validation by people liking or commenting. If we do not receive that, we feel a momentary devastation that no one sees us or that all of this is not worth it without the recognition.
Social media is designed to be this way, appealing to that human craving to be appreciated. If the goal is validation, you will likely not receive it. Or only in small, insignificant doses. If the goal is to share, genuinely, you have a shot at fulfillment. The moment it’s about you with social media, you’ve lost. You will never be truly happy. You will endlessly seek more and more validation.
Maybe I’m overthinking all of this, but that’s better than not thinking at all. That’s the point I’m trying to make. And all this thinking points to one conclusion. The key to social media is to stop doing it for what I might gain, but to offer others what I have, for no other reason than that I am passionate about what I’m doing, and as a consequence, I want to share it with people.
Onward and upward,
Lee
