286 followers on Instagram.
243 friends on Facebook.
How many people out of these 529 people do we actually communicate with on a weekly basis?
Weeks go by; people get busy; it’s fine. How many of these 529 people do we catch up with over the course of a year? The Christmas letters and the end-of-year photo dump don’t count as “catching up”.
Last question. You’re up in the middle of the night, 3 am, and you’re in the middle of a panic attack; you’re getting lost in the financial burdens, and you just want someone to listen.
I’ll be generous and say that half the people you follow are online, half the people you are friends with have the green light next to their name, and yet you can’t tap their name and start typing away.
I was in this position just a few short weeks ago. I was going through another flare-up (I love that for us chronic girlies) and on top of that my anxiety was like, ‘you’re awake? Great, let’s talk!’
I usually don’t want to talk when I’m in the middle of a flare and anxiety spiral. I want to be left alone. Turn on a show, and suffer ALONE. But it was different that night. I so desperately wanted someone to talk to. I needed someone to talk to.
I turned to Facebook first.
Green lights in an orderly list. People were awake. I wasn’t the only one up at this ridiculous hour. So, who was I going to talk to?
He’s a friend’s brother; I don’t know him well
She’s a friend of a friend’s mutual friend who I’ve never met in my life
An extended family member I knew from one or two family events?
Someone I knew from youth group ten years ago
Sure, there were people online; theoretically speaking, I had people THERE, but not one person I could message to say, “Hey, I’m having a really hard night.”
I had 243 friends according to Facebook, yet I may have kept in touch with 5 of them, if that. So that’s when I had a realization: I had 243 people who periodically liked my concert pictures and blog articles, but I didn’t have 243 friends. I’d accumulated 243 people with Facebook accounts that I had met at a function, and we decided to share the highlight reels of our lives.
Be uncomfortably honest with yourself (I can guarantee you that half the people in your friends list are feeling very similar).
Are you lonely?
We, as a society, have never been easier to reach, but so many of us feel that nobody is there. Just because we’re reachable doesn’t mean we’re connected enough to turn to each other at 3 a.m. We view so much of someone’s life, yet know so little about the person actually living.
I crave a future where Facebook was purely poking a few close friends and playing FarmVille. I yearn for a future where we aren’t worried about how many people we’re friends with or how many people are following us for the sake of a number. I pray for a future for both of us where we have people in our corner we can call without rehearsing what we’ll say, friendships that exist outside of social media, and friendships that can survive the inconveniences of life and busy schedules.
Maybe we, as a generation, need to stop collecting followers and start cultivating relationships.
At the end of the day, I really don’t care if you have ten followers or ten thousand. I care whether or not you have someone you can text at three a.m.
