We have read complaints from people having thousands of social media followers and yet they feel so lonely and misunderstood. Followers are only a number when everyone ramps up their game of acquiring numbers. The lack of social interaction is a wall behind which we hide for the safety of isolation. We prefer wasting time online behind the screen, than investing the same time forging real time relationships.
Every day we check in to read thousands of posts by strangers. But do we check in on our family members living under the same roof? Familiarity breeds contempt and we don’t value those closest to us in proximity. Instead, we hanker for fake attention from some electronic medium. Yet when we interact with words and emojis, we often flare up over ego clashes and subversion of opinion, which is essentially a violation of personal space. This is an example of what they think:
Why can’t I have the right to express my opinion and rant when I want to be heard? If anyone tries to placate me with fake assurances, I shall decimate them like casualties of stubborn insistence. Even better, I shall block them from the privilege of reading my posts and disturbing my mental health .
In this aspect, interactions in social media resemble their counterpart in reality. When people can’t connect, with one another or with their thousands of followers, they feel lonely, misunderstood and terribly unhappy. This is what’s wrong. The words that remain haunt others and themselves. Those people aren’t lonely.
Creative writing prompt: The words that remain.
🙂