I may be a curmudgeon of a Millenial, but at least I’m not part of the iGen generation. While these young’uns seem to be veering towards centrism (and thank Jesus, the one and only, for that) they have never known a world without social media. They don’t remember a time when you had to call your friend’s landline in order to hang out; they don’t remember a time when you couldn’t bail out of plans last minute; they don’t remember being bored, and playing with a stick in the dirt; they don’t remember mystery. Romance has left the building, and social media killed it. I may be quite cynical about the advent of this technology, but I see factors that make me concerned.
Humbolt University in Berlin noted that one third of their subjects had feelings of envy and frustration after viewing Facebook. This would indicate that we might have a problem here. Although I think it’s good to have our ego brought into check, it’s also not good to wallow in self-loathing. Another study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine surveyed 7,000 Millenials. They found that those who spend the most amount of time on social media were twice as likely to report experiencing social isolation; this is what I call “interconnected disconnectedness.”
So many of us are unhappy. There are many causal variables that would also feed into this. I am not pegging the whole of suffering from tweeting. The state of being is to suffer, and we have suffered since the beginning of our species. Selfies don’t help though. Also, we exacerbate our combined frustration by putting out illusions. It’s all smoke and mirrors; that’s everything in life though. The older you get the more you see behind the curtain. People look at my Instagram, and only see what I want them to see. They don’t see when I have gnarly hemorrhoids; they don’t see when I pick my nose; they don’t see when I have a good cry in my car after eating a chocolate cannoli and still have crumbs on my face… scratch that… that never happened… I only win, win, win and win some more (no crying from me).
I see this illusion making is pervasive in the culture (Christ, I sound like a leftist). The culture is one of self. It’s all about the ego, but it’s also about appearing triumphant at all cost. Even our products perpetuate the cycle (Christ, now I really sound like a leftist). The iPhone, iMac, and iPad are all about “I.” We know that nobody is happy all the time. People suffer, and have to find ways to conquer the suffering. Everybody wants to have it all. They want to be little masters of the universe. I see tubby middle-aged men posing with drugged tigers. I see kids posing with garb indicating how “woke” they are. I see women posing for photos with other people’s kids while pretending to be mothers. It’s all a switcheroo for the camera. The famous street photographer, Henri Cartier-Bresson talked about how he captured truth with his camera. He would snap a photo at the perfect time, and call this “the decisive moment.” I believe he meant that when people weren’t aware they were in front of a camera they could actually be revealed. When people are aware of an audience or viewer they immediately change. It’s not that they are lying, but there becomes an inherent showmanship. The selfie is totally antithetical to the decisive moment. A selfie is a well-orchestrated endeavor that merely creates smoke and mirrors. Cartier-Bresson sought to capture life by revealing the raw truth. If he were able to take a snap in the precise moment then he would get authenticity. It wasn’t about the “I,” it was about the “we.”
I am not saying I want to see people post their bowel movements or snot rags. Mystery is good; romance is good; privacy is a long lost dream. I do hope that more of us will refuse to cave into the “I” though. It would do us all a lot of good to strip away the identity game. I would love it if social media became more about the “we.” That’s what we all really want at the depths of it all. We all just want a little peace, love and understanding. Let’s search along, with Henri Cartier-Bresson, for the decisive moment together.