Call Your Friends Instead of Stalking Them on Social Media

Social media shouldn’t replace a phone conversation or seeing someone in person

Photo by Jorge Gardner on Unsplash

Lately, I’ve been finding myself saying no to plans with friends more often. A majority of the reasoning behind that is because I’ve been spending a lot of time with family, attending major life events, and have been generally busy with my usual day-to-day commitments (which mostly includes work and marathon training).

Then, if and when my schedule actually does free up, all I want to do is relax. I don’t feel like squeezing in any new plans or catching up, I just want to spend time with myself — which I know sounds horrible, but frankly, it’s the truth. And ironically, the time that I spend “alone” entails stalking other people on social media.

In our current day and age, social media has given us the grand luxury of knowing exactly what people are up to without actually speaking to them. Or if we do ask someone, “How was your weekend?”, there’s no mystery or anticipation of their answer because we’ve likely already watched their Instagram story or saw the latest update on their social feed — We’re constantly in the know as long as people are continuing to give us insight into their lives.

However, the problem with that is…