Social Media….

Something, that was so irrelevant in my own life angered me the other day. My own adverse reaction has made me really stop, reflect and think about my own moods, thoughts and feelings and also led me to writing this blog post.

Recently, I was out with a friend on our bikes, I was so blissfully happy. Being out on my bike always makes me feel better, this is my escape, my freedom, it’s my down time, away from the stress and the hustle of daily life. It’s my self care.
Half way through our outing we ended up talking about something that had recently happened in our local area, which now had escalated into a heated debate on a post on a certain social media platform (yes, I know)!!!!

Although I know some of the people who were involved in the incident, I was not directly or indirectly for that matter, affected by this whatsoever. However, just talking about this caused my mood to suddenly change! I was getting agitated, I felt angry. This made me pause and think - WHY am I letting something, that doesn’t affects me in any way spoil my special time?

So, this experience got me thinking a little more about how life used to be so simple, before smart phones and the internet. Don’t get me wrong, I totally appreciate these technological advances, these innovations. I fully appreciate and understand how they have, in some ways made our lives easier. However, and I emphasis the ‘However’, they have also created chaos, insecurities and anxiety.

It is so easy now to get lost in other people’s lives, even if we don’t know them. And, I am not talking about celebrities. I am talking about a mom you just met at school and connected with on Face Book, Insta, Snapchat (whatever). Suddenly, you now you find yourself comparing your life to hers! Equally, that colleague from work with whom you really have nothing in common with, you talk to on occasion (cos that’s the polite thing to do) all of a sudden you are now seeing their life and their problems, they are now becoming your problems, you feel them - it now changes the way you think and feel? You see social media posts, they make you angry, you reply without even thinking!

Before all these social platforms were invented, you needed to actively seek out all this information, in order to know about it and then to get involved. You would be called a “busy body”, a “local gossip” as such. Today, we all are these people who know it all.

But, back to my bike ride, like I said above I found myself getting involved in this incident and was getting very agitated. Yet, I was able to recognise and manage these feelings, I carried on my bike ride without any more negative thoughts on the matter. You see, as counsellors we are taught to really listen, not just to focus on our words or actions, but also to recognise ‘how’ our bodies respond to thoughts and feelings. We become more self aware and self reflective. (But, not always possible as we are also human). I would like to say, that my own self awareness came from me being so tuned in to my own body that I managed to recognise and stop the feelings of ‘anger’ to overtake my happiness. (Obviously a zen like moment) those that know me, will know this is a joke! Equally, my own previous experiences with social media platforms and apps has led me to the knowledge that these can effect my own mental health, was it this that had helped me to recognise these feelings and their source and let me step back and disengage.

You see, a few years ago, I was using this app to record my bike rides. At the beginning, it was only for my own knowledge, so I knew how high I had climbed or how fast I had managed a segment, essentially to track my progress, or so I was telling this to myself. However, it soon became pretty addictive and rather than being happy with my progress, I found myself “stalking” others on this app. It became an unofficial competition, although the other competitors did not know they were in the race. I soon found this obsession of getting faster and better took the joy out of my rides. I became impatient with my biking buddy if they were in front of me on the timed segment, as it would make me go slower (if they were slower than me), or I would leave them behind not really caring if they are OK. The social and fun bit was taken over by competitiveness and stress. I started to moan to my husband about it and found out he was feeling similar. He loves biking but he has noticed that using this app has made this activity less fun than it use to be. After that conversation we both decide to stop using it. After all, we weren’t trying to train for a competition but we were riding for our own pleasure and using this App was preventing this.

I think this experience has allowed me to have a bit more of a balanced perspective towards using social media and social apps. I learned what effect it has on my moods and now I try to ignore it and stay away whenever possible. Yet, occasionally I get involved in someone else’s drama, even though it has no barring on my life at all.

I know, it is not always possible to avoid getting involved as social platforms are part of our daily lives these days. A lot of our social interaction, our child’s school and even our work events are organised via some kind of platform, therefore it is hard to give it up completely, but we can filter as much as possible what we can see and therefore choose not to get involved.

So just think? How different would your day have been, if you did not look on FB, insta or another social media platform today, would you still feel upset, inadequate, useless?? Ask yourself why do I keep looking at other people posts? Are they your friends? Because, if they are, surely they will tell you in person what they have done, where they have been on holidays or if they had an amazing meal last night. In person they might even tell you that the holidays wasn’t that great, or they have spend the whole day working or the meal was crap. On social media we all live and portray a whole different life (which is generally a load of……)

So my advice, take a break, I will 