I have a love/hate relationship with social media

I love social media!

I love keeping up with family, friends and trending topics.

I love knowing that I can get information about my neighborhood, community, state, nation and the world in an instant.

I love that I have unlimited ways to share my life with those I care about in the form of pics, videos, posts and comments.

But…there is another side to social media that I hate…

I hate it when hackers feel it’s their prerogative to pretend they are me.

I hate it when hot topics and news divide us or strong opinions cause a loss of friends.

I hate it that since we try to share the positives in our lives, it gives the impression that everyone has the perfect life, the perfect relationships, the grandest vacations and have it all together; when it’s not a true expression of the day to day challenges, hurts, fears or reality of everyday life.

I don’t know about you,

but I know I do NOT have it all together!

(believe it or not, lol)

Then there’s the obsession of constantly looking to see how many thumbs up, hearts, laughs, wows, tears or anger clicks or comments we’ve gotten on a recent post. It’s probably not intentional, but we are so used to the system, it’s hard not to feel a little put off, when our post doesn’t perform the way you would have liked.

Let’s be honest. No one posts hoping people will ignore it! They are looking for someone to respond. That’s how it’s set up.

Many have threatened to take a break from social media, or get off all together, only to be back within a short period of time.

Even if we haven’t cut the strings,

there are times when we desperately wish we could!

There have been numerous articles online regarding how users feel about their social media experiences.

There is definitely a split, almost equally, in whether they would be happy to live without it if it totally disappeared to the other extreme, “No! You can’t take it away! What would I do without social media???”

To be honest, it would change our lives drastically.

Wherever you are on the scale, we all know it can spike or crash depending on what’s happened on our news feeds.

I truly believe “what we all yearn for (whether we admit it or not) is:

to be seen
to be heard
to be loved and
to know that we matter”