I recently decided on a whim to take some time off from social media - namely, Instagram. With the business of work, life, raising Alligator and a ludicrous news cycle, I found myself at the edge of meltdown. I had lost my sense of self and centredness. I decided, on a whim, that one month was absolutely the right amount of time I needed away.
After letting the impulse jitters subside, I realized that tranquility and loneliness are closely tied. While I had the time and space to read or even just to go about the business of my day uninterrupted, I missed the relationships that I’ve fostered over the last however many years it’s been. I missed ex-colleagues that I share inside jokes with; old friends - a few from other social media sites - who I share so much history with; new friends who I have had the absolute pleasure of getting to know recently; and so many parents who are all in the same boat of raising their kids in a complicated world.
I didn’t realize that the small glimpses we have into each others’ lives are sometimes the breath I need in the middle of the day. A chuckle at a ridiculous meme my sister sent me or a really interesting article or a gorgeous poem. These are the things that buoy us, pulsing through the (frankly) daily struggle that some days can be. They are the way in which we say, “Hi, this made me think of you, which means I thought about you during the course of my day.” Though it’s a silly joke, someone cared enough to think, “I know the exact person who will appreciate this.”
They say it takes a village to raise a child. While it’s not the village of my grandmother, where you could leave your kids with the neighbour and come back to find them fed and playing in the garden, our online communities are a makeshift village. They enable and catalyze that most basic of human drives: the need for connection. And in these cataclysmic (it seems) days, I think an awful lot about collective responsibility - how we owe it to each other to keep each other safe and human. Certainly that’s not what we have seen in recent years in the news cycle, but we’ve seen it in a myriad of miraculous pockets of humanity. How we come through in countless big and small ways for each other. If we are not for each other, then what are we for?
There is a loneliness epidemic for so many people in all walks of life and at all stages. We also receive the messages that social media can be too much, and that it can exacerbate this loneliness. And we also see how it can serve as a community to uplift. All of those things can be true (I’ve learned that part of being a grownup is holding space for multiple seemingly contradictory truths and I don’t like it one bit). But like anything in this world, everything has two sides and it’s up to us to determine what the balance of the two looks like in our lives.
I think breaks are good - it’s nice to look up once in a while at the wide world. I also think I’m in the process of renegotiating my relationship with all things social - perhaps fewer junk news cycles and more rich connections. One thing I do know is that I missed my village. While we might not be neighbours and while I might not see some of them for years likely (I hope not, but it’s realistic), I know their presence is a deeply embedded part of who I am. They make me who I am and reflect it back to me in countless ways. There’s value and care in that.