I’ve never had a social media profile.
I have never had a social media account. I’ve never even considered setting one up. I lived through the inception and rapid growth of social media as a teenager and an adult. I don’t hold any particular moral stance on these platforms or fundamentally object to them. I simply never saw a reason to participate.
Media at large on the internet has tremendous positives for us all. I include myself in the beneficiaries of this (hence, being able to discuss my thoughts on this platform and make them available for you to read). I would never dispute the positive gains for us all, including myself. I know that being a participant on the internet is largely inescapable in our lifetimes. But, as my dad says, it’s not what you do but how you do what you do that makes all the difference. I’ve always lived by those words — even though for the majority of my childhood I was very confused about what he was talking about on any level. As an older person, I’m now very clear on what he was talking about on every level. My general conclusion is that one’s Behavioral RNA largely determines how they perceive social media as a whole and, equally, how they interact with social media as an individual.
Today suspicion is often cast upon people who choose not to use social media. It’s become commonplace to look up new acquaintances and romantic prospects to, “find out who they are.” When someone has little-to-no social media presence, it’s viewed as a red flag.
I believe the term “social media presence” is worth examination. What is “presence” when the information posted on social media is the farthest thing from it? Presence in the social realm is curated. It is a representation of what the individual posting wants others to see. People are generally sending their representative selves to the front page of their profiles.
Before making a judgment based on a person’s social media (or lack thereof), it is worth asking what you’re looking for. Are you looking for the person or their representative? The representative is not who the person really is. It’s more like a character they’ve learned to act like. Most people’s social media accounts are a political presence that affords them social currency. That is to say nothing of the fact that social media users are the product of social media and effectively constitute the platforms they use without compensation.
That is, in aggregate, how I view social media and why I’ve opted out. When I look at someone’s profile, I don’t think I’ll see who they are. In my opinion, that would be like going to the movies to see who Brad Pitt is as an individual. The reason I respect people like Brad Pitt, Jared Leto, Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep, Sidney Poitier, Cicely Tyson, Samuel L. Jackson, Angelina Jolie, and Bruce Lee is because they’re being paid to send us their representatives. If I were paid like an A-list movie star to present the character that social media wanted to see, then I may consider it (depending on the economics of the deal).
What is your reason for having or not having a social media account?
