Published on 12, July, 2020
It feels a bit ironic that i'm about to post about my hatred for social media yet here i am taking advantage of one such platform to get my view across. However, please hear me out and do tell me if you feel the same.
I believe that the key component of my Aspergers that is holding me back is not so much the inability to interact and communicate with people but more that i am fighting against modern technology and the way (i believe) it is slowly but surely changing people and their behaviour into something i am not part of nor wish to be a part of.
I've had to adapt myself to 'fit in' to a social, communicative NT world these past 30 years and i've managed it but social media has ramped up the stakes significantly. People seem to want to be more communicative and connected than ever before and that causes a problem for me. Everyone seemingly you meet asks you if you are on Facebook / Twitter etc etc and are obsessed with having a social media presence. Like a double life.
I have one life. This one. I don't post pictures of my unborn baby's unltrasound scan to a world that doesn't care. Why would i want to post up pictures of my kids? I can show them to those who know me when i see them. I don't spend half my holidays taking photos of where i've been and putting them up online. I don't stand behind the goals at my teams football match and film a goal being scored. There are TV cameras doing that on your behalf anyway, i'd rather just celebrate the goal and live in the moment like we all used to do.
I don't go to see my favourite band and then spend the entire time recording it on my mobile. I don't pose for staged self absorbed vacuous photos of me kissing my other half with my tattoos showing and baseball cap on back to front just so i can 'look cool to others' on social media.
I don't walk a mile into town with my head down staring at my phone and taking no notice of the outside world. I don't need to check my phone every 2 seconds. I have the rare ability to be able to wait at a bus stop for 5 minutes without feeling the urge to whip out my mobile phone so i can check some more pointless trivia.
So you had a pizza hut last night and you've kindly posted up a photo of your pizza for us all to see. How about just eating it and enjoying it instead of taking a photo of it? It's a bloody pizza for God's sake. It's nothing special.
I don't spend hours arguing with and trolling others on social media. I don't have a burning desire to push my opinions on others on social media and even if i did. What good comes of it? So i hate rap music. Nobody cares if i do or don't. So why tell everyone? So i disagree with the way my football club is run. Do i get off my *** and try and do something about it or just moan to everyone on social media?
Why do i give a [removed] what Britney Spears wore to last weeks awards ceremony? Banal clickbait crap all the time. Bombarded with pointless rubbish all the time. It's all negative and superficial.
You get the idea.
The thing is that this is the world we are living in now and it's bizarre how the world is even more connected than ever but yet i feel so much further away from being able to connect to others because of my disdain for all this stuff.
People are being drip fed constant streams of information and news and the like and it's all pointless. It's an addiction. Could you live without your phone for a week? I reckon with most people a day would be nigh on impossible.
I know that if i am to find my way back into the world then i have to accept and integrate into this digital way of living now and i am not sure i can. My rigid thinking holds the opinion that all this social media is pointless and therefore by association so must anyone that chooses to live their lives by it. Given so many people do so then how the heck do i stand a chance of connecting with people when they are away with the fairies all the time texting pictures of their genitals and things?
I don't know really. I had a mistrust and sceptism of people in general before all this digitial explosion happened so now how do i fit into this world now? I'm only 40 but life and society now is moving far too fast and i can't keep up. I've been left behind but the weird thing is i know i've chosen the mor natural nurturing option. The thing is that nobody else has so i'm more alone than ever despite having a family.
Does anybody feel this way and not motivated to interact due to this?
Being in my mid-fifties, I come from an even earlier generation in terms of technology. Until I was 16, we didn't even have a landline at home and the only way I had to phone someone as a boy was through a public phonebox (inserting coins). "Long distance" or "trunk" calls were very expensive and phoning someone abroad was simply ruled out. Together with my Asperger's, it probably explains why I'm still very uncomfortable using phones, unless I know the caller well. I don't have a mobile.
I grew up in the pre-video era when all TV had to be watched live and if you missed a programme it might never be repeated and could not be purchased or seen anywhere. Unusually, I did have an 8mm film projector and hired sprocketed films on spools (generally silent, lasting only 10-20 minutes) from a library located in a dingy backstreet. It also sold and hired what were then called "glamour films" for adults.
I also had an 8mm cine camera but the film was so expensive - allowing for inflation, about £40 for three minutes - I had to be very careful not to waste any. It was generally reserved for holidays. The only way of editing in this pre-video system was by physically cutting the film and re-assembling it.
Contact ads - for finding potential partners - had to be placed weeks ahead in magazines, then there was another delay of a month or so, while the publisher collected any replies in one's individual "box number" then forwarded them in a bundle. I remember one instance where the replies were mixed up and I got those intended for someone else, who had very different requirements!
If I wanted information for homework, books were the only resource. We had a lot at home but it often meant a trip to the public library. Buying a vinyl "long player" record was a major event, and only after careful choice, as they were generally so expensive in the 1960s & '70s. Most homes then only owned a few dozen of these 33rpm twelve-inch records, the preference generally being for cheaper 45rpm "singles".
Although I don't use a mobile, or the more common social media sites, I do use a PC and email a lot. My most emotionally intimate friendships are now with people whom I've never actually met (or in some cases even spoken to), despite the fact I've been corresponding with them for up to 20 years! So digital technology provides a benefit but at the expense of isolating me more from the real world. Similarly, all the objectives described above - which once required me to go out - can now be achieved without leaving my computer desk!