Social Media Has Made Me A Lazy Friend
The harsh reality that replying to your BFF’s Instagram Story doesn’t count as catching up …
“I spend way too much of my time on social media. It’s the last thing I check before I go to bed, lights off, blue light beaming into my dry eyes. Come the morning, I’ll sleepily switch my alarm to snooze, before attempting to wake myself gently with the same screen, scrolling and refreshing. I’ll eagerly view my friends stories each day, reacting with heart eyed emojis at their selfies, wishing them congratulations on that new promotion, or proclaiming ‘omg I’m so jealous!’, at their holiday pictures.
And with that, a few likes, a quick WhatsApp- my ‘friend duties’ are done for the day, all before I’ve even got out of bed.
I’ve done this for so long that it’s become a guilt-inducing normality for me- the lazy girls guide to friendships. I want to connect more, to have a real conversation beyond the somewhat vapid small talk and reactionary comments, but I find excuses. ‘I’m too busy’, is a classic lie I often tell myself. ‘I hate talking on the phone’ is another. There may be a little veracity in both of these excuses, but I fear the truth is, social media has made me a lazy friend.
Don’t get me wrong, I was never exactly a social butterfly. As a natural introvert, my social habits mostly involved a quick trip for coffee with friends, after which I’d return to the comfort and seclusion of my room in my shared student flat until it was time to emerge for food. I preferred long drawn out phone conversations over endless back and forth texts, where gossip and giggles were shared and I could hang up the phone in the peaceful knowledge that I still had my friend, that we still cared and connected with one another, and that I was now free to bask in sheltered silence once more.
The problem is, being so prevalent on social media has meant that my brain is starting to confuse a virtual connection with a personal one. I feel as though the act of scrolling through my friends Instagram, committing to liking and commenting on every single post, is gradually replacing the long phone calls or ‘IRL’ catch ups. I’m using constant online commentary and compliments as validation to myself that I’ve kept in touch- I don’t really know how they’re feeling right now, but I know they posted a photo of themselves on a beach last week so they must be doing alright. Maintaining friendships as we progress through our twenties can be difficult, and social media has provided us with a quick fix, a way to show affection without the effort.
And before I’m painted out to be the worst person alive, many of my friends’ share the same issue when it comes to viewing social media as both a help and a hinderance. I’ve experienced it from both sides- the mutual likes and sentimental comments on your latest picture, the thumbs up reaction to your stories- even the little conversations via Instagram DMs. But then you realise you haven’t seen each other in months. That the Skype chat you promised never happened. We still care for one another, we still genuinely want to know how the other is doing, and we still feel constant guilt at the fact that our laziness has got the better of us. So we head to the Catherine Leilah Earnshaw apps for a quick fix, an instant numbing, and tell ourselves that we’ll catch up properly some other time.
“Do we seek out our friends on their online platforms, or do we just happen to be hit with their photos or snippets of thoughts as we take our daily stroll through the internet, a little reminder of the real world and the real people we know through the swarm of aesthetically pleasing strangers we follow so closely? ”
I’m partly blaming this form of detached communication on the fact that most of my friendships are long distance. Different areas of the country, different parts of the world, I very rarely have someone that I can casually call up for a coffee. In a lot of ways, I miss living in close proximity to my friends. I miss the spontaneity of our friendship, the quick text of ‘want to hang out?’, and out the door. But the truth is I’ve just got used to it. My natural introversion means I rarely feel lonely, and when I do, I have a boyfriend that I can make plans with, that I can hang out with, that I can gossip to. I don’t want my boyfriend to replace my friends, but in a way, he’s sort of had to. Practically, I can’t hang out with my friends every week. I’m lucky if I see most of my friends more than twice a year, and so the act of scrolling through their Instagram or retweeting a funny tweet they tagged me in has become a part of our kinship that I heavily rely on.
When my mind has a rare moment to pause, I wonder whether this flood of constant online communication is but a false connection. Whether the likes and tweets and DMs are simply an extended form of our addiction to social media, of being in the right place to see that post as soon as they hit share. Do we seek out our friends on their online platforms, or do we just happen to be hit with their photos or snippets of thoughts as we take our daily stroll through the internet, a little reminder of the real world and the real people we know through the swarm of aesthetically pleasing strangers we follow so closely? Truthfully, I don’t really know. The cynic in me doubts social media’s authenticity, each form of engagement equating to a sort of narcissistic debt that needs to be paid, a like for a like, a comment for a comment. It wasn’t until recently, when I began sharing my mental health struggles publicly on Instagram, that my view began to shift. I received private messages from people I hadn’t seen for years, people I assumed had forgotten of my existence entirely. People would ask me (in real life I might add) if I was ok, if I wanted to talk about it. Suddenly I was reminded that my friends were really there, that they had flesh and bones and personalities, and as they leapt from my overcrowded phone screen I was met with that familiar warmth of belonging and affection that only comes from genuine attachment.
I don’t exactly know how to ‘fix’ the problem of social media friendship. I’m not really sure there’s even a problem to fix. It seems as though despite my fears of losing that intimate bond through personal associations, staying in touch through social media seems to do no significant harm when it comes to keeping kinships going. I think the danger comes when we assume social media to be reality, when we confuse surface level appearances to be the entire goings on in someone’s life. It’s not of course, we’re much more complex than our latest filtered post would suggest. And whilst I will continue my morning scroll through sleepy eyes and blinding blue light, it’s my responsibility to really ‘check in’ with my friends. To schedule and keep to that Skype call, to follow up a post with a genuine ‘how are you, really?’ call. Let’s keep social media social this year. And seeing as this is more of a check in of my own accountability- to my friends- I’m sorry I’ve been distant. I promise I still care, and I promise to be better. Now, let’s stop being flaky and arrange that catch up.”
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Thank you so much to the wonderful Catherine from @catherineeleilah for contributing this piece which we have no doubt so many other members of The Insecure Girls’ Club community will be able to resonate with. You can read more of Catherine’s work on her own blog: www.catherineleilah.com.