Inner Peace In A Social Media World

Here is an important question. Is it possible to achieve inner peace in a world that is now dominated by social media? At the present time Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are the top three social platforms in the United States with billions of people around the world taking part. In fact, in the U.S. it’s hard to find an adult that’s not on at least one of those platforms although many are on multiple platforms. In addition many people are also on multiple online dating platforms that are basically niche social platforms.

One hallmark of social networks is the tendency for information to be pushed to you at any given time. So much information is being shared on these sites that there can be a constant flow of information pushed to your smart phone, email, computer and tablet. In short, you can’t miss any update. So much information coming at you makes it difficult to ignore what’s happening out there on the internet. It can be like someone knocking at your door or calling you on the phone multiple times every hour of the day. In today’s social media world intrusion and distraction are the norm.

How do we maintain inner peace in a world of intrusion and distraction? There’s no doubt that it’s difficult. Periods of silence and focus are necessary to maintain inner peace. Extraneous and mostly useless information affects our thoughts, pulling us in to the drama of the world out there. It’s a world that we are beckoned to take part in with the masses. And oh what masses there are! It’s likely that every single person you know is taking part. But do they have inner peace? Are they even trying to achieve it?

Those of us who lived a good part of their lives prior to social media and smartphones know that life’s basic challenges, such as work, money, relationships and family, could be pretty difficult to handle without a constant flow of information (good and bad but mostly bad!) coming our way. It seems as though most people have quietly adapted to these new world as if it didn’t change anything. Oh, but it has changed so much and not for the better. Unless you are mindful of how and when you interact on social media the tendency is simply to do it more and more. And more social media equals more stress and less inner peace. One need only to dive into the comment section on almost any popular article or video on the internet to see the lack of inner peace in social media.

A few years ago I realized that social media was affecting me. Perhaps more than some and less than others. I can’t say for sure. But it was something I started to think about quite a bit. I was very active on Twitter and Facebook in their early days. Twitter started to get to me first. I found so much anger and self-righteousness there. I was there too though! Did I really need to be there? No. Eventually I came to that conclusion and abandoned my Twitter account, but I still had Facebook. For a few more years I maintained my account there and got used to the constant stream of updates from family and friends (real and otherwise). Once again (about two years ago) I began to feel like the negatives of Facebook outweighed the positives. So a year ago I deleted my account.

While I had some anxiety about leaving Twitter there was definitely more anxiety as I considered leaving Facebook. Most of my interactions on Twitter were with total strangers whereas I did have many family and (actual real life) friends on Facebook. Would I miss them? Would they miss me? How would I keep in touch with people? Just a few thoughts I stressed over when considering leaving Facebook. I left anyway. My thinking went like this. The people who really want to stay in touch with me will find a way to do so. I will also find a way to stay in touch with people I care about on a one-to-one basis. There are still plenty of digital tools to make that easier today including Skype, and text messaging. Have I been in contact with less people since I left Facebook? Yes. Has the quality of my life been degraded? No.

One key benefit accrued from scaling back on social media (I still maintain an Instagram account to promote my hobby of photography and LinkedIn page with my resume) is more free time to think and keep myself mentally balance. Gone are the constant updates about anything and everything, most of which have no bearing on my life. Gone is the anxiety associated with seeing something that upsets me or that I disagree with. There’s a lot more free space in my brain and that has undoubtedly supported my ongoing quest for inner peace.

I have a lot more to say about this topic but for now I’ll make the point that, all things considered, I do believe it’s possible to have inner peace in a social media world as long as each of us finds a balance of participation that works for us. In general, I believe that less is more and that approaching social media thoughtfully and deliberately (rather than going all in like many people do) is one key to a more peaceful existence.