I’m in Melbourne. So I’m on the fly. So today I just post something I found interesting.
A new survey (conducted by a vitamin company which I don’t particularly feel compelled to mention) about stress and work/life balance says 63 per cent of us feel social media is making us stressed. And that women are feeling it more than men. And what about this:
“women feel more pressure than men to be interesting or witty in their status updates (69% vs 39%).”
Do we? Really? Or is it that we feel pressure to keep up and to keep on going. I certainly feel this. Once you enter the social media fray, you step onto a funpark ride that’s hard to get off. Further, you feel you need to keep stoking the furnace driving the ride. Otherwise…otherwise….???
I’m going to write more about this shortly. I’ll just plant the idea for now. Prop up a mirror to this relentless stoking and self-created pressure.
Coming at things from another angle. I enjoyed this column by New York Times columnist David Brookes on social media and the changing role of media in general…and for the need for content that counts. That resonates. That cuts deeper. If you blog or tweet, it’s worth a read:
“There must be room for a magazine that offers an aspirational ideal to the middle manager in the suburban office park, that offers a respite from the deluge of vapid social network chatter, that transmits the country’s cultural inheritance and its shared way of life, that separates for busy people the things that are enduring from the things that aren’t.
In the media business, as in politics, it’s important to know what year it is. It’s 2010, not 1998 or 1986.
There is an anxious seriousness in the air, waiting for an outlet.”
I agree…there’s an anxious seriousness…we’re yearning it, we’re hungry for it. We’re drawn unhealthily, compulsively, against our better judgment, into the empty dross online – the gossipy stories, the freaky pic reels. It’s understandable. We’re human. But it’s become too much. What we really want now is stuff that’s considered and taps into the care we’re all aching for.
Perhaps that’s why we stress about being interesting in our status updates???
Do you agree? Do you share this ache with me?
So really wanted to get the...
something that helps fill that ache, for me, is an American publication my sister introduced me to called The Sun magazine…the features are long enough to sink your teeth into and deal with real people doing real things – a beautifully human mix of news and life experience and creativity. After reading one I feel like I’m much more connected than any experience with social media. Unfortunately they don’t have full online access yet but they do international subscriptions.
http://www.thesunmagazine.org/
Lydia x
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I feel the ache… That is why I write, that is why I read blogs like this one, why I love frankie magazine and Benjamin Law. I think the consumer has moved past that aspirational (somewhat destructive) yearning to emulate lives of rich, beautiful celebrities, whose lifestyles are utterly unattainable… and onto bigger and better things, like considered thought that helps to enrich our own existence.
As for social networking, I am sure that I am completely boring to many people but I just have to trust that there is a small slice of the world who find my twitter updates and blog posts somewhat engaging. Actively trying to be interesting would be exhausting so I just write according to what I am thinking or how I am feeling. On the other hand, I have dropped Facebook altogether and, now that I think about it, it is probably because that pressure you talk about just got all too much.
Thank you so much for the link Lydia, it looks lovely!
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I really like to read New Scientist. Online or in magazine form.
It helps dull the ache caused from viewing endless articles forcing diets, celebrity plastic surgery scandals, tabloid gossip and other soul-numbing garbage at us. It’s like a car accident you cant quite look away from, and cant help but absorb… especially when every supermarket checkout in the country is lined with the things. Online life is no better!
Perhaps women feel more pressure to be intelligent, as we know other women are more likely to be more judgemental of us?
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I read article that in the paper yesterday, along with a little mention that some study found that students these days were more likely to send text messages during class than pass notes. Oh, REALLY? They actually conducted a survey on that? What next, that extensive studies concluded that its actually lighter during the day? That driving is 74.6% easier with the use of eyeballs? *Audible sigh*
I think there is still a place in society for both online and hard copy media and both social networking and traditional networking. I personally feel worse about dropping my lunch crumbs and gravy over my iPad and having to bin it than I do when I do the same thing to the newspaper.
As for the social networking, getting drunk, naked and ‘grindy’ with a stranger is at least 3 times as fun (surely someone has conducted a poll already?) in real life as it is over chatroulette….ahem. I kid, I kid! Because closing an internet browser window to turf out an unwanted is surely better than having to pretend the non-existant hubby is coming home? Right?
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The only time I’ve ever found social media stressful was when I was whinging on my status about mothers that use their kids photos as their own profile pics. You know, a ‘you are not your child’ rant… cue 82 cranky mother commments, and several deletes from friends later and it was quite a day…. but that is the only time it has ever been stressful. I think socioal media is fun. I love reading status updates and writing them. I don’t care if my status is boring or dull, its MY status and not yours. That’s why the ‘day of the mother status update was so stressful’. I think some people take status updates seriously and even personally. I also know how to turn my computer off, and the tv and my phone. I read a good old fashioned book when I need time out
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December 3rd, 2010 at 12:29 pm
That actually really annoys me too. Having a Facebook filled with profiles of infants that all look exactly the same is really frustrating… Just sayin’. I get you.
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A load of bollocks. Social media has become the new whipping horse to reflect people’s insecurities. Facebook, Twitter, whatever, the level of involvement and personal `exposure’ is entirely at the discretion of each person. Free will is just as active in social media as any other social choices.
I actively choose to write witty status updates. It is something I enjoy doing. Facebook is an interface via which I choose to entertain. I have chosen who is on my friends list, I am the only one who clicked `confirm friend’ on my account, nobody coerced me. I know the audience I am transmitting to. The circle is greater than close friends, so the information level I choose reflects this. If I am having a rough day and have nothing funny to say I simply don’t post. I send a text, email, private message or goodness, make a phone call to a close friend to talk about personal or stressful stuff.
If people feel pressured to be witty, perhaps it is not the media for them. Ultimately it’s your page, post whatever you want.
I am bothered by friends who do post personal and/or angsty stuff on facebook. I don’t believe it is the forum for it. It is a `public’ place and public mores need to be employed.
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December 4th, 2010 at 12:35 am
Ps. Free will remains…if you feel pressure, there are three magic buttons …`remove from friends’ `hide’ and `suspend account’
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I really think it is about a healthy balance…I don’t follow rules…I am not yet a great blogger…I am no master at FB and I hardly blink at Twitter or LinkedIn…I think the most IMPORTANT thing to do is nurture n nourish your INNER sanctuary… so I do these things the best I can and then leave it in the hands of the universe/destiny…airy, fairy, wishful….perhaps!
i just don’t believe in applying a formula to life..I just love LIVING it
Thanks Sarah! Your posts are always BRILLIANT!! 
You are a true asset to the ONLINE world 
xoxox
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