Contentedness and social networking
I've been thinking a lot over the past few days about the idea of contentedness. Since the rise of Facebook and the overwhelming popularity of social media, I wonder sometimes the extent to which our lives are affected by being constantly "plugged-in" to each other.
I remember, not many years ago, feeling much more isolated. If I was busy with a hobby, reading a book, taking a trip...it never crossed my mind what all of my friends would think. But a scary thought occurred to me the other day: if I do something now which, for whatever reason, is not posted on Facebook, is not written about on my blog, or does not end up in the podcast...do I feel as if that activity has equal value? Scary thought.
More specifically, I'm wondering to what extent we "social-networkers" are even starting to unintentionally filter our behavior based on this. If I spend a day reading a book or hiking a mountain, only nobody knows about it or cares, am I just as content? Do I end up choosing not to do things which unplug me from the network and have no relation to the network? Am I trying too hard to somehow validate what I do, what I think, and who I am externally?
Maybe we'll talk about that next week in the Podcast (haha, I'm sure you see the irony in this). By the way, there won't be a podcast this week. We just felt like taking a week off.