If You Didn't Post It Online, Did It Really Happen?

Be honest, If I didn’t post my birthday on social media, have I even aged?

Images courtesy of Cosmos

When British philosopher George Berkeley said ‘If a tree falls in a forest and no one can hear it, does it make a sound?’ He was talking about perception. Essentially, he was asking: if a thing isn’t perceived, does it actually exist?

Well, nowadays we know it does still happen, because physics kicks in, the tree falls and because it has weight it creates noise, whether we hear it or not. A nearby bird enjoying an afternoon bug probably gets a fright.

To think only the things we perceive exists is almost the biggest form of human narcissism there is. I’m not sure if that’s what George was trying to say back in the 1700’s, but it’s what popped into my head today.

I’m not sure what George was trying to say back in the 1700’s, but in my mind it sounds like narcissism on humanity’s part to think that only the things we perceive exist.

So it makes sense that social media has started to turn our society into something that works within this understanding of perception.

Think about it for a moment.

Did you read the book if you didn’t put the review on GoodReads?

Did you watch a movie if you didn’t share on Letterboxd?

Did you go on holiday if you didn’t post it on Socials?

The answer is no.

At least if you’re online, the answer is no.

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It’s important to remember that there are some people who don’t have an online presence at all. They just exist, like ghosts floating through the world, and unless they’re texting us every other day…we’re in danger of forgetting about them.

I say this because I have a friend who is entirely offline, not even one social media account. We stay in contact via group chats in Whatsapp, and even then, if he doesn’t message me for a few weeks, sometimes he slips my mind entirely.

This is social media derived narcissism at its finest.

He exists, even if he doesn’t actively use social media. He is still a valuable contributor to society and is living a fulfilled life, and therefore as his friend I should be interested in his life without being prompted by social media as to what’s happening in it.

Why is his life less important than someone I don’t see in person every often, who is essentially a long distance friend? Just because one is more visible than the other?

This just reminded me that I am a simple being who see’s whats in front of her first, and other things tend to slip my mind. I don’t believe this is the person I want to be.

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Two years ago, I went on holiday. I did not post about it on social media, that was intentional. I find when I’m on my phone, I’m just interacting with people who aren’t there, with my nose down, instead of allowing myself to see things for the first time. It was well worth it, I can still imagine the streets of New Orleans and I made friends with both the doormen, I’m even intent on visiting them again, this time with Tim Tams or something.

However, when I next saw my friends, no one really asked me very much about my holiday. It slipped their minds in a few minutes and we were suddenly talking about that dinner place I saw them post on socials the day before.

This is when I realised that if you don’t post it, it slips peoples minds.

It’s not the fault of my friends, they don’t mean to be chronically online, they just are. They are also simple beings, just like me, who see what’s in front of their faces first, so it’s no surprise that they forgot.

The only issue is, it made me feel as though my life was not as important as the life of the person who posted everything online.

Offline, life is less of an easy conversation. as it had to be teased out, you need to ask a question, ‘how was your holiday?’ then listen to what is being said and ask follow up questions, ‘so there was Jazz everywhere in New Orleans?’ and then move seamlessly back to listening actively. It’s not a skill everyone has.

This is not their fault either. It’s the world around them sucking them into doom scrolling for hours on end.

I knew I was being stupid, and there was good reason as to why no one was asking about my holiday, but I wanted people to pay attention to my life.

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This led to the great oversharing. I started posting daily. I wasn’t doing anything daily worth posting, so I left the house more often, or reposted other people’s stuff. I tried to post where I was, what I was doing…all the time.

It worked. People wanted to know how my trip to the markets was, what that show was like, did I like the shoes I bought. Then they started commenting on my hair, my outfit, my vibe. I felt seen and connected, and important.

I also felt perceived. Too perceived.

The internet states that the fear of feeling perceived can also be known as Scopophobia.

Scopophobia is an excessive fear of being stared at. While it is not unusual to feel anxious or uncomfortable in situations where you’re likely to be the center of attention — like performing or speaking publicly — scopophobia is more severe. It can feel as though you’re being scrutinized.

-Healthline, 2020.

Alright, so I didn’t have Scocophobia, I just didn’t like how much people were seeing me and possibly scrutinising me.

It was too much to know that I had to look put together just in case I wanted to take a photo of myself doing this, or that. Then I had to make sure the photo was cute, and had a cool caption, so when people perceived it, they got the right perception of me in return.

It wasn’t one or two people either, when I was posting regularly, people in the hundreds were viewing it. That was just too much for me. I knew maybe 20% of the people well, 40% were acquaintances and 40% were randoms. That's too many people I don’t know.

So I deleted Instagram from my phone and disappeared for a while.

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Disappearing is not the solution. My friends got concerned and started messaging me elsewhere. I also work in a people facing industry, so having social media is not optional, most people in my industry need it to tell people what work we have up and coming, so we can network and grow.

I also felt disconnected from my loved ones, especially the people who live far away or are too busy to be seen every other week. I had no idea if they were okay or not, and soon Instagram was back on my phone.

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Now, I have taken some time to practice, to re-learn conversational skills and get back to speaking to everyone as if they are of equal importance.

It was very awkward at first, I would interject people when we were in groups, zoned out and had to pretend I know what others were talking about, and learnt the value of shutting up and nodding, when in doubt.

With a little more practice, I became a seamless listener to both my offline and online friends. The key is to ignore what you’ve seen online and just act like everyone is an offline friend. If they say ‘but you saw the post’, I say ‘I wanted you to tell me about it from scratch’. If the conversation is dwindling, and its an online person you follow, that’s when you turn to, ‘I saw that you’d been to the show this weekend.’ If its an offline person, you can’t go wrong with, ‘tell me how do you find inner peace?’. That one makes people’s brains hurt.

In the last two years, one of the most important lessons I’ve learnt is as follows:

Remember that physics exists, a tree that falls and no one sees it still has impact on the earth, so every person who is offline, also has impact on the earth.