Look Me in the Facebook Eyes

“It is the second day of April and it is almost ten at night. After a thirty-day self-challenge to stay away from social media, I have been “allowed” back on my sites for an entire 46 hours. But I’m not there.”

That’s how I began this blog post three days ago. But with no burning desire to return as the over-sharing force I once was, it took two more days for me to return to Facebook. Before I did, however, I decided I would develop a more conscious Facebooking practice: less time, fewer posts, more meaning.

For me this means adopting a strict policy of no Facebook application on my phone, no waking up to social media, and more observation than self exposition.

See, the thing is that in looking back, so many of my thoughts and observations during the month of March boil down to one core issue: Awareness, or a lack thereof.

I quickly discovered that I tend to use my social media as a tool to distract me from the things that I don’t want to look at in the present moment.

I have used these applications and websites to look at other people’s lives in order to avoid looking at my own; I have used Facebook and Instagram to satisfy boredom which generally stems from my lack of desire to be academically productive; I have used my iPhone to avoid connection with strangers on trains, on campus, or even in my own home when trying not reveal that I’m going through something. I’ve also used social media to try to make myself seem interesting when in actuality I felt I was embarrassingly boring.

After thirty days away from it all, I have no desire to continue using social media for any of those purposes, and plan to use Facebook strictly as a tool encouraging connection between my friends and I rather than having social media be the connectedness that exists between us.

In truth, at the conclusion of my adventure, I have discovered that though social media creates the illusion of being connected or a part of a larger whole, it actually hinders my personal connection to peers.

While walking on campus on the first day I was allowed back to social media, I caught myself staring down at my feet. When I looked up at my surroundings, I saw student after student on foot, bike and razor scooter looking down at their phones; scrolling, smiling, tapping away—even FaceTiming as they passed through the gates of USC and into the city of Los Angeles.

As I watched them, completely absorbed in their individual worlds rather than the collective, I thought to myself how cool it would be if suddenly everyone at once looked up from the faces of their phones and into the faces of one other.

And that is precisely what I hope I have inspired at least a few of you to do. J