Trust me, you don’t have that many friends
.JPG "Sarah Comer is one of six reader columnists for The News Tribune.")
It’s a known fact in my circle of friends that where other people have an inner child, I have a cantankerous old man.
I’m not a fan of loud places, change or the concept of paying extra for pants that are 50 percent hole. I’m bothered both by the fact that I seem to be the only one ordering straight up coffee at the coffee shop instead of some “mocha-frappa-late-chino” and that drip coffee now costs more than two dollars.
I mean, I remember when coffee cost ... And that is just not a sentence someone my age should start.
So, I suppose it should come as no surprise that I’m starting to have my doubts about the internet. Hear me out.
To be clear, I’m not anti-internet. I just don’t think humanity was prepared for it. No other platform in history has given us the potential for celebrity and anonymity on this scale, and the outcome has been equally paradoxical.
On the one hand, who could have predicted that people would start eating laundry detergent for likes?
Humans doing stupid things for attention isn’t new; this is just the first time we’ve been tempted by a little box that might tell us millions of people like us. People we don’t even know. Which is the other side of the coin. Screen names have given us something to hide behind.
It wasn’t that long ago that if you wanted to shout something to a hundred people, you had to stand and face the consequences, but now you can broadcast hate to the whole world from the safety of your own home.
The internet didn’t create these things; it just dialed up the temptation and gave us the opportunity to yield to the worst of our nature. Social media is changing the way humans interact.
I realized recently just how much time I was spending on there, and worse than the time was the reason: I was feeling lonely. I should have called a friend or made plans to go out; either would have done much more for me than Facebook ever could, but that’s not what social media encourages us to do.
Rather than facilitating friendship, I think it’s trying to replace it with something easier, faster and less fulfilling. Connection is one of our most basic human needs, and one of the few that can be filled with no commercial involvement, but I think social media would beg to differ.
Our friends are being watered down, repackaged and sold back to us. It’s easier. It takes less time. And it’s starting to change the way we use the word “friend.”
Don’t take this personally, but you don’t have 500 friends. No one does.
We didn’t used to have the need for words like “friended” or “friending.” We became friends, not with the click of a button, but — as the phrase implies — we became something, over time and with effort.
That’s what social media wants to sell us, the feel of human connection, without the time and effort that maintain real relationships. It’s basically junk food. Instantly gratifying, but it leaves you hungry.
So what do we do? Delete all our accounts cold turkey, dismantle the cell towers, start slapping people every time they say, “Oh, I need a shot of this for my Insta”? Tempting, but a bit drastic.
For myself, I’ve decided my new mantra is: “The dullest afternoon with a friend is better than the best cat video I’ve ever seen.”
Technology can be a great tool for facilitating connection, but it’s a poor substitute for it.
Put the phone back in smartphone, call a friend. Go get coffee, and use your face to communicate all the things emojis only wish they could.
And while you’re there, for Pete’s sake get yourself a cup of coffee, not some darn unicorn spice half-caf ... There I go again.
Sarah Comer of Puyallup is a musician, storyteller and community dance facilitator. She is one of six News Tribune reader columnists in 2018. Reach her at fiddleteacher@hotmail.com
This story was originally published August 24, 2018 at 2:56 PM with the headline "Trust me, you don’t have that many friends."