Social media and the Big Story.

So, is it wrong to pick apart social media on a blog? Also, since I deactivated my Facebook who will know when to read a new post? No tweet about what's going on? Oh no how will my blog survive? These are the thoughts that I am laughing at myself or having.

I have had some form of a blog for about 10 years. I was under the 500,000 mark for joining LiveJournal.

I had a Facebook as soon as I could, got a twitter soon after Ashton and Demi.

After all the hours I have spent reading people's statuses and looking at photos I have started asking myself some questions.

- How much of this is really beneficial?

- why do people post so many complaints and whines and moans about people or their lives?

- has this brought us forward, made us better, changed society, changed me?


I enjoy saying updated with family and friends and past co-workers and students. It's great to see what their up to and great to see photos of their baby bellies and kids and their work.

Then I think, what happened to letting the past be the past. Something you just want to let lie, leave alone, and then one day something will be in your face, on your screen that you never wanted to know, or maybe a person you were ok with never seeing again. But there it is - complaining about their husband, or wearing pasties in nearly nude photos, or spewing bitterness about others maybe even you in a manipulative indirect but direct way.

What happens in Facebook/ twitter doesn't stay there. It is this new realm that everyone also lives in.

And everyone sees. I can't tell you a week that has gone by where I see something, read something, see a relational interaction that makes my heart hurt. It makes me say " too much. This is unhealthy." or " back off, why are you picking a fight" or " I never wanted to see/know that about you"

I just ache for something authentic, and this 'extra realm' everyone is living in isn't it.

For me personally I felt like I always needed to check or I was missing out on something important that was happening.

And what I was really missing was usually lame stuff. And what else could I be accomplishing? What did people do before Facebook,Twitter,Instagram
,Pinterest.

Did they accomplish things? Did they appreciate mental silence ? Did they sew? Cook? Have real convorsations? Read good literature? Paint? Expand their creativity ?


WE ARE SATISFIED BY SO LITTLE.

I was listening to a message from Donald Miller and he quoted someone to the effect of " as the morality of a society declines the quality of creativity and the ability to tell a great story are lost"

This grabbed my attention. There is so much crap everywhere. Why- because we buy it. We watch it, we vote for it. We say- well I guess this is where the world is and I must allow this to satisfy.

Are you satisfied?

I'm not.

There's more in me brewing about all of this. I have research I want to do an things I want to check on. A question I have is what will this age be called? When we look back, will we say of this generation, " and now you can see where the decline of creativity and intelligence really began"