Social Media is Good For You

The increased use of social media has changed the world in ways many people will suggest are all bad. Saying that this new crop/generation of ego soaked narcissists wouldn’t have come about without the social media medium is short-sighted. My thought is that this medium just gave everyone a voice that they were already feeling entitled to use while disregarding anyone else. It didn’t make them this way, it just aided them to be heard.And watching this definitely made many of us a little more shy online.

But just because that’s what you hear and see, this still doesn’t mean all of us are having that same distasteful experience. In fact my social media experience has become quite the opposite and I am bowled over at how my esteem was raised up so much by strangers on the internet.

If you Google search “the effects of social media”, you get a pretty bad laundry list of how people’s psyches are crumbling under the pressure of the cult of perfect on the internet. I want you to like me, I am compelled to control that, and so I put false and perfect images up of myself so that you’ll ooh and ahh and won’t cast me out of the tribal circle. Except, the false-self will be very unhappy with the whole thing and eventually, in your attempts to be a perfect, you will fail to trust the very acknowledgement you receive.

…Have the faith that if you are just you, that those who are meant to be your friends will know you with their eyes closed and their minds open.

The opposite of fake is authentic. And I now know that authenticity comes from you creating a space for you to be yourself. That it is highly risky, yes, but when you hand your true you over to strangers repeatedly and they still like you? You got a good thing going on. And so was my tale of how Instagram has changed my life.

The story about how this medium elevated me from my dragging self-esteem to being a daring doer, is all about how I made lovely friends all over the world and trusted that what they were telling me was true. That not only didn’t I suck, I soared. My ideas were valid and wise. My art and pictures were interesting and beautiful. And that I was genuinely a someone that people wanted to be friends with and still do.

This was about seeing myself through a previously non-existent mirror. And building myself up with risks and achievements I’d accomplished which then were echoed time and again by strangers who became my friends. That is how I see social media in my world. I am a benevolent loving presence in many people’s lives. I have exchanged letters with them and met with them and Skyped with them. And I am never disappointed at how wonderful the women of the world are. And how they show up for me when I ask them to. Very validating indeed.

Social media isn’t as sucky as social media would have you think. It’s all in the way that you use it.

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter or Pinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

And, as always, Thanks to you for your visit.

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