I think social media will ruin us. Or at least that it will ruin me. I sometimes detest it so bad and it gives me so much anxiety that I want to delete it all and move to a cabin and live without depending on anyone else (except my plethora of publication subscriptions, holla). Still I use Twitter and Facebook primarily because when I have in the past deleted them, people tell me I’m “anti-social” and turning my back on the “inevitable social future of technology.” They tell me I’m being a bad friend, because I’m making them try too hard to get a hold of me. UM, TEXT ME? Okay? I just don’t get what the value is in spending my energy looking at what so-and-so read in the Guardian or what member of what band so-and-so is bros with because they just posted a photo of them together in their Mobile Uploads. Why can’t I just watch Art 21 on Netflix and not depend on Facebook Events to know about parties? Not to get ranty (whoops, been there for a while already) but it seems to me that with our obsessive social media updates we’re perpetuating a calculated fantasy, creating microcostic photogenic-centric social realms. The addiction comes from the level of control over our identities we have, as well as the instantaneous gratification that comes from talking to people you know all the time and having them respond. (Phew, I feel better already.) 

And what about all the people who don’t have at least 200 aquaintances in the world? Or at least have less than 200 followers on Twitter (ie. ME)? Are we  destined to stay among the Twitter minions forever? What’s the formula for getting random people to like you? And why do we have to follow that formula to see our social worth quantified? Do we really need one more reminder that we’re inadequate and like, probably creepy?

Maybe I have issues, but at least Screenshots of Despair makes me feel like there are others out there like me–who recieve no messages on OkCupid, and whose gravestones will read: “Jessica Carroll 1988-2070. Had only 230 Facebook friends; 186 Twitter followers. Poor thing. R.I.P.” 

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Jessica Carroll is the Toronto Standard’s “Best Thing on the Internet Today” columnist. Follow her on Twitter at @jssckr.

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