I Need to Work on Social Anxiety But No One’s Being Social Because They’re All on Social Media and I’m Not That Social on Social Media (or: Faces in Phones)

Every time I get to class, almost everybody has their faces in phones. Some are studying, some have their faces in books, some have laptops, some have nothing, but most have phones. The phones are supplemented with earbuds to block out potential noise, letting the internal speakers fill the user’s environment with whatever they’re listening to. I’ve always thought that college was a great place to make friends and reinvent yourself, a belief enforced through countless movies and television shows, but in our current era it feels like everyone has closed themselves off. Who needs real-life, in-the-moment conversation when you have a whole planet of people to talk to through social media?

I’ve always had a problem talking to people. Actually, I don’t have a problem talking to people. I talk to people on a regular basis. The hard part is actually letting them talk. Over the years, I’ve made progress in reducing the anxiety that occurs whenever I attempt conversations, only for technology to put a major roadblock in my progress. Given that, you’d think that social media would be a godsend. Finally, I can talk to billions of people without actually having to meet them! Some may even talk back! I can post videos and photos of my life for others to be jealous of, and let people know what I’m eating as if anybody cares! Instead, however, social media gives me even more anxiety than talking in real life (or “IRL”, because reality now needs its own slangy abbreviation for today’s Face-gram addicts). Forget alienating people you’ve actually met—now you can alienate your family, friends, potential employers, and random strangers just by saying the wrong thing without being there in person! Also, there’s all kinds of shitty people online who are given equal voices, and while I really don’t give a damn if I alienate them, that still carries consequences. 

As a result, I barely use social media at all, and if I do it’s to post those aforementioned photos of my life to make my friends jealous, repeatedly refreshing the page to see if anyone has given me “likes” for what basically amounts to bragging with an iPad camera. Most of these photos are to promote recent independent films, further hammering the idea that I have no real opinions that would hurt anybody’s feelings and jeopardize the career I want. I haven’t even gotten to hate speech. Maybe someday I’ll work on my sensitivity to language, but that’s beside the point. 

It’s not that I’ve completely dismissed social media. I’ve made a few industry connections, some of whom I couldn’t otherwise meet in person, and I’ve found and keep in touch with people who share my interests. That said, it doesn’t compare to the feeling of talking to people in real life. For example, both people have to be online at the same time to have a real conversation, and the delayed reaction creates a feeling of separation. If no one responds, it’s like they’re not even there. For me it ruins the feeling of connection from in-person conversation, and the great leaps in communicative technology since the century began also feel like large steps back. We’re all connected, but when I go to class and want to make friends, no one’s actually listening. They’re all looking at social media.