The darker side of online dating is that it encourages the idea that a good relationship must mean a conflict-free relationship. And therefore, any relationship which has conflict in it, which has unhappiness and areas of tension in it, is wrong and can be terminated, because we have this wonderful backup, which is alternatives. So, like any tool, it’s got its pluses and minuses and has to be used correctly. And I think what I mean by “correctly” is, it has to broaden the pool of people from which we’re choosing our lovers, while not giving us the illusion that there is such a thing as a perfect human being.

instagram

(-)
-narrowly conveyed self, thoughts, ideas, concepts. warped and compacted into easily-digestible form. over-simplification, loss of nuance. dimensionality inherently flattened.
-informs our sense of identity as something to be consumable.
-even when ppl refute the surface-level/mainstream use of instagram with radical “authenticity” “honesty” “transparency”/ an instagram ~anti- aesthetic~, it will always be a façade. distillation and curation.
-a simplified channel in which to pour our energy, attention, time, creativity, and sense of self. what would it look like to let that channel dry up and reroute into other mediums? what previously unimaginable things could emerge, evolve?
-giving others immediate access to (a version of) ourselves. what is the cost of being so easily digitally perceived, accessible, explored, influenced?
-actions become social-media oriented; curated to be ~shown~, palatable. rather than existing and growing organically, in reality.
-AKA deriving more pleasure from SHOWING OURSELVES DOING than ACTUALLY DOING. digital exhibitionism.
-our dislikes are amplified (/unfairly created). easier to project upon others when we experience a distant, distorted, contrived version of them. we see what we want to see.
-remain tethered to people from our past. it’s alluring to keep open the possibility of deeper connection. but sometimes connection remains merely because of etiquette to mutually “follow”; insulting and invalidating if rejected in that assumption.
-affirmation to ourselves that we exist, via being seen and interacted with by others. who am i if i am not constantly proclaiming that i exist? (ego-driven). methodically thrusting ourselves into the minds of others whenever we want. indulging in the validations, comforts, thrills, implications of that proclamation. while simultaneously feeling indefinitely anxious/anticipatory of certain peoples' acceptance or validation (quality), or "enough" of it (quantity). paradoxically fills and drains us.
-may foster connectivity but simultaneously breeds comparison, jealousy
-the most beautiful things that have happened in my life have not remotely occurred on or via social media. why play into creating and winning these crumbs of dopamine and validation? it’s such a weak, artificial thread of “happiness”/satisfaction. it isn’t real.

(+)
-"connectivity"
-allows access into people's lives (???)

But I’ve come to believe that, in the Internet age, the psychologically destabilizing experience of fame is coming for everyone. Everyone is losing their minds online because the combination of mass fame and mass surveillance increasingly channels our most basic impulses—toward loving and being loved, caring for and being cared for, getting the people we know to laugh at our jokes—into the project of impressing strangers, a project that cannot, by definition, sate our desires but feels close enough to real human connection that we cannot but pursue it in ever more compulsive ways.

Never before in history have so many people been under the gaze of so many strangers. Humans evolved in small groups, defined by kinship: those we knew, knew us. And our imaginative capabilities allowed us to know strangers—kings and queens, heroes of legend, gods above—all manner of at least partly mythic personalities to whom we may have felt as intimately close to as kin. For the vast majority of our species’ history, those were the two principal categories of human relations: kin and gods. Those we know who know us, grounded in mutual social interaction, and those we know who don’t know us, grounded in our imaginative powers.