When you need tender, face to face connection in a hyper "connected" world.

I don’t really know how to show real life on social media anymore. In a way, it’s become kind of soured. It’s as if my brain has started to naturally reject so much of the noise. The longer I pause, the easier it is to find ease in my mundane.

Deep down, that’s all I want. That’s all I ever wanted. As a mother of a medically fragile child, I craved the mundane. I scoffed at the mother’s who whined about it, if only they knew how little, how lucky, how….

The day in and day out of my own little world can feel monotonous, but it’s skin to skin. Real.

I like feeling connected, I tell myself, I don’t want to sever it. But, more and more, I need the authentic connection I was born to be with: face-to-face, rooted in a circle, couch, corner bench, in the same stride on a walk or even on the other end of the line, in real time. Life feels so full and it’s not the busyness that alarms me. It’s my habit to check in online in the midst of it all. Good things to share! And things to consume. People to watch. Stories to read. Frothy anger to ingest. Helplessness and fear to stir.

I watch how quickly my hand reaches for my phone. The rewiring of my brain, on display for all to see.

I watch how I can no longer sit still in a waiting room without reaching for my phone. I write, I email, I book things. And I’m no longer bored. The in between time slots are always, always filled.

I watch everyone else do the same, but their necks are tilted down

so they can’t see me.

I still feel the need to connect with the outside world on this little handheld device, and yet that quick online connecting is what draws me away from a present, grounded life. I spent years making real community online. First, I blogged, at set times. Most of the screen time was spent writing. There were no daily check ins. I had regular readers, but most of the time, people were quiet readers. They would tell me in person or through email what my post had meant to them.

Then it slowly changed, quieted. Social media took over. The next thing. Then, it got faster, bigger, brighter. Then, the next trend came. I began to see us all morphing into attention hungry humans, perhaps needing to be seen, looking for an outlet, making lots of money, selling stuff or oversharing. If we weren’t doing this, we were seeing it, absorbing it, everyday.

If I don’t go on social media, I notice the connection to my outside world remains close to home. Since the beginning of time, taverns, town squares, that is how it’s been.

Is this how it’s meant to be now?

I connect more with the world around me. I’m on my knees in the dirt and I talk to my neighbour who weeds across her lawn. I talk to the parents outside the school. Nothing fancy, but I am present. It seems as though these simple interactions have been replaced with the thrill of “the flooding feelings” that are so common online: a sense of lack, worry, stress, excitement, envy.

It feels lonely to meet the set pace of society, as it leaves little room for heart to hearts. How else do we catch up now when we are all so tired and busy? I remember growing up with parties. Church picnics. Comedy stand up in the living room.

How is it that it takes weeks, maybe even a month or two before I see the friend who lives down the road?

I don’t know. I don’t know how to balance it all, but I know “social” media is a time suck. And I know time is limited. I just don’t want to do it alone. I want to be in it with others around me. Maybe this is why the online world glimmers like an oasis. But is it sustainable, is it an optical illusion? I don’t have the answers, but I need to start asking questions for my own good, and for my children.

If I pick up my phone in between cooking dinner, I scorch the meat. That’s telling. The garden calls, always. I wasted 5 minutes all bunched up and squinting, when I could have been squinting in the sun, pulling weeds, hunched over as my ancestors were.

In between the glossed up online world, there are sugar ants in a corner of my basement. A load of laundry tumbling. It is rich with life, all of it, even the banal bits. But it’s lonely, sometimes. Just me, hands in the sink, up late, reading for five minutes before I fall asleep.

Photo by Danie Franco on Unsplash

I don’t need ChatGPT or a stranger’s feed to feel connected, but it feels like I’ve been trained to need it. Social media has become a kind of “fast fashion.” A practice, I can’t support without feeling a sense of dread.

I just want to sit with you in a quiet place. I want to meet new people in the flesh. I want to feel my feet on the cool, wooden dance floor and move alongside you. I want to hear about what you’ve been doing, just for me. I want to show you the back garden. I want to hear you read a poem. Come by for a quick cup of tea, please. I want to feel it is all enough.

I want so many things and it seems most of them

are not online.