Childish

“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”

1 Corinthians 13:11

Social media is a funny thing.

See, I remember before it was really anything. Before Instagram, Facebook, even Myspace. Dare I admit, I remember before AIM? Because I do.

And those early versions were different. Unpolished, direct human-to-human transmissions, more often than not between people you knew. Not people you had met once, but people you knew. You know, knew offline.

No branding. No like and subscribe. It was a little like passing notes in the hallway between classes, but with photos and music and a few other flourishes, and a slightly wider audience.

Something weird happened when we went from “friends” to “followers.”

But anyway, my relationship with it has been off for a while, though I still felt fine standing on the slippery slope. I could still talk to a couple people I know! It wasn’t all bad. I could curate a feed. A feed. A feed bag.

And I didn’t get into the weird new Gen Z nonsense like TikTok or Snapchat. I tried for a minute, then gave up.

On Threads, there are so many elderly people commenting on AI porn-bot scammer accounts. And it’s all public. Like, posting their real phone numbers and addresses public.

There’s a Meemaw in Texas who thinks she is chatting with Elon Musk, and they are in love, and anyone can see it.

It makes me sad. And makes me wonder if that could be me someday. Older and clinging to some technology I don’t understand, while everyone else watches.

It has just devolved. Become a place I don’t know if I want to be.

So recently, I have been more and more into my actual life. I haven’t really cared what most other people are doing, especially people I don’t even know. And the more in my life I am, the more I like it.

It’s actually really nice.

And I don’t even want to share it.

Like, this is mine. This is my little scrap of life, and I’m going to enjoy every fucking minute of it, as me-sized and ordinary and holy as it is.

Did I outgrow social media or did it outgrow me?