Off Social Media | The Boredom Pandemic

[BurnedOut]

I have been off social media since I turned 16 which was a very ironic age to let go of social media. The main reason was that I wanted to dedicate more time to my studying and ensure that I end up in a good college. After my life went downhill for another half a decade, one thing remained constant - my gripes with boredom and how I dealt with it. How does this connect to the boredom pandemic? You'll find that out soon.

My brief time with social media was quite honestly a rollercoaster ride. Nothing was more exciting for the 14 year old me to post an apparently awesome picture of myself and expecting praise from it. By the time I was 15, I was already questioning my involvement in social media given the fact that I was constantly mentally competing with my peers. By 16, I ultimately gave up due to studying and that it just was not fun anymore to make the anticipation of praise exciting to my psyche.

That brings me to now when I question my decision. I realized a few things -

• I am usually bored. However, the people I know tend to be even more bored than me. Their boredom is less explicit simply because they are able to mask it with these formulae:
  • Work - Social Media - Social Life - Work
  • Work - Social Media - Weed/Liquor - Work
  • Work - Social Media - Work - Hobby
• These combinations all work excellently and the second one is especially the most comfortable one. Most people lie between one and two. People belonging to the third category are rare but also interesting. However, the common denominator is 'Social Media'. If you take that off the list and kaboom! All the three categories are sort of helpless with the second one being the damned one. However, such a situation rarely crops up in real life because internet and a smartphone are more or less basic human rights at this time.
• Unmentioned categories:
  • Work - Hobby - Social Life - Work
  • No work - No hobby - Social Life - Social Media
  • No work - No hobby - No social life
  • No work - Hobby - Social Life
  • No work - Intoxication - Social Life
• The first ones at the rarest to find. This category is unironically regarded as the 'boomer' or 'conservative' category by Gen Z. I lie in this category. My social life is equivalent to my hobby and is dwarfed only slightly by work (Sometimes the relation is inverse). The second one is unheard of but not too difficult to spot. The third category is rare to find. Fourth is similarly rare among the working Gen Z and the last one is quite common to spot and not heard of as it is a taboo in the society.

So some patterns are quite similar here. In the society, the archetype for being 'healthy' is at least having 2 aspects -

1. Work
2. Social Media

People who lie in this Gen Z category seem to be epitomized and are usually well known and well accepted. The main Q is, how and when did social become such an integral part of our lives that it is thought to be imperative in terms of having a 'healthy functional life'? I raise this Q again to you and to me because I am confused whether values are interchangeable with assumed imperatives that are dependent on trends or not. Suppose if internet is never going to be a problem for the rest of my life, how much sense does it make to not use social media and make it a part of my lives? It is a rather confounding Q because I don't know why people of my age (18-25s) complain about 'not having time'. I mean I understand in my age group studying for the future is a big part of our lives but I am 100% sure that nobody is that studious and eventually needs a breather from time to time. However, the common Gen Z myths about 'kids who use shitty bricks for phones & sacrifice their friends for the future' persist like air. I have no idea how that is humanly possible because in my life I have seen the 'top guns' of my major whoring for attention for the remaining few seconds of their break. They are hyperactive on social media, usually seem to know the online pop culture and just snobbish in-person just to portray how 'genuine' they are about being a 'studious person'. I just find it hilarious because this particular species of Gen Z think that their online persona speaks more than their actual one.

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Let us come back to the argument of persons who cite these '101 of social-media nay-sayers`:
1. It is all dependent on self-control. If that was the case, why is it that no person who says this cannot resist showing off the tiniest of stuff that occurs in their lives?
2. You are insecure and that's why you stay away from it. Then why do you never pull your head out of it? To not have something that can be easily obtained is more painful than having it and struggling to moderate its influence.

These are baseless arguments such as the ones neocons like to spout - 'men are best self-governed with minimal nudging'. I don't think Freedom Of Speech comes with the notion of engaging in self-destructive behaviours and not experiencing any restraint towards it. I was briefly addicted to getting stoned. I got sober and now stoning all the times is much more boring than moderating its use and abstaining.

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That brings me to the primary focus - 'Is boredom a pandemic?'. I think that we are all victims of this pandemic believe it or not. Some of us are fighting but most of us are budging under its pressure. Even if you are good at your hobbies, excellent at your workplace, not having social media seems to make you seem incomplete in the eyes of other people. I speak for Gen Z.

When you start hearing from the mouths of children, young and late teenagers and young adults about 'not having time to pursue a hobby' and watch them diddling with the touch screen of their phones clicking a picture of a fly shitting on their food, you know Gen Z is more mentally broken than popularly assumed.