Connective Cube

There is a major split in my life. As in, I never know when I am over sharing or not sharing enough. When I don’t share enough, I feel FMO – fear of missing out. When I do over share, I often want to lock myself into a room and not come out for days.

With all of the emphasis on personal branding and maintaining an image online that is consistent with day to day life, I find that I am neither my online identity. Nor am I myself in the flesh without someone looking through my old photos. I used to liberally invite people into my social circle, and I even wondered if adding people I would only speak with one would be worth my brain space.

Social media does take up my brain space, and it becomes more precious to me as I age. Why are pictures of my ex-partner’s sister’s children populating my brain space? This leads me to thinking about my ex – and we are on good terms – and wondering why I hop into relationships in general without thinking too much about mutual interests. which, in essence, is a rabbit hole. If I dates someone with all of my interests, then I would never be open to new experiences.

And here is the thing. I notice that people hold you to what you say on social media. I see social media as platform that produces affect. Since people generally want to surround themselves by positivity, notes about how people are really doing – or hurting – gets swept to the wayside.

Why aren’t those feelings allowed to be public? Sure, they can be as public as anyone would like for them to be. That is the thing – it is a choice. With increasing programs in positive psychology and a focus on tuning out anything challenging, the individual must rely on people in the flesh to grieve.

Studies do show that the more negative emotionality posted on a site, the more likely people aren’t going to engage with the content. Instead of censoring emotionality, perhaps we can live in a society where people can have mixed feelings and be public about them.

Within a traditional narrative, there is a story arc – the introduction, rising action, some sort of climax, and then closure and resolution. The social media story that I read about someone else is more nebulous than a narrative, and I also know that it is only a representation of presentation.

Perhaps I have become less in representations of myself. Can I just see you in-person? Do I need to take photos when I see you? Can you forget about the noise that is the representation of myself? I know these questions just make me seem like an Eeyorish type who can’t accept the present, or the future for that matter. I would like to go home and not speak with anyone for the next two weeks.