The cost of social media.

You know what really grinds my gears? People that live their lives checking twitter, updating facebook and texting. It seems like people don't have time to deal with the real world anymore. They are too busy updating as many people as they can about their current happenings. Can't it wait? Or better yet, not be done at all?
There are many ways now to let your family and friends know what you are currently doing, or plan to do, your current mood, or what you ate for lunch. You can text, which seemed to do the job, but why text different people, when you can spam all your family and friends by putting it on facebook, or tweeting it, or blogging it.
I don't fully understand the point of it all. I can understand in some circumstances sending a mass text to all your friends that you are hosting a party tonight, or blogging while you are on a trip, to update all your family and friends on your current status, without having to make a bunch of phone calls. There are practical uses for it, but for the most part, it's nothing of importance. There is a line I heard in a show called The Boondocks, that summed it up best "Nothing typed with your thumbs has ever been worth reading". It's true.
If something is of importance, don't you want to talk to someone? If I break my leg, and need help, am I going to text someone? When i buy or sell something on craigslist, people insist on texting back and forth for 15 minutes. Can't I call, ask about the item for sale, when I can come see it, and where it is located? Do I really need to send text messages back and forth? You can find out more information in a 30 second phone call that you can in 5 minutes of texting. My time is important, lets speed this up a bit.
So really texting and twitter and facebook is about nothing. It's a constant back and forth of where you are, what you are doing, who you are doing it with, what you plan to do later, blah, blah, blah. It's what's going on in your daily life. Who cares? Seriously, you think your life is so important that you need to consatantly update everyone on every exciting minute? I have my own life to deal with, and the funny thing is, it is far more exciting than yours. You know how I know? Because I don't have the time to update anyone about it! What I'm doing is probably fun, exhilarating, fast paced and requires concentration. I don't have time to type what I'm doing with my thumbs, nor do I have time to read what you ate for lunch.
Now maybe it seems I'm getting worked up about nothing, I can just choose to not partake. But the problem is, it effects intereactions in the real world. If I am having conversation with someone, in person, and that persons concentration is constantly interupted by text messages, it detracts from the conversation. It breaks your chain of thoughts. If you are face to face with a real, live person, and you are responding to text messages, what signal does that send to the person you are talking to? Sorry, but someone just texted me that they bought a new pair of shoes, and that is more important to me than what we are talking about. I presented this concept to a friend. His rebuttal was that it might be an emergency. Someone might be hurt or dead. If someone is seriously hurt, or dead, is the news going to come in the form of a text? You don't think you might get a phone call instead? Nothing of immediate importance comes in the form of a text, or twitter update, so you are going to stop a conversation, with a person, in the same room as you, to respond to a text about nothing? You don't think you owe it to the person in the room to give them priority over someone oviously doing something very uninteresting and texting about it? I went to a restaurant this weekend, and noticed a family of 6 or 7 people all sitting down for a nice dinner. At least half of them had their faces burried in their phones, texting, or updating, or checking out youtube etc. Those things can't get put on hold for an hour, so that you can talk to your family and see what's going on in their lives? Does everyone have attention deficit disorder? You can't focus on any one person for more than a minute? You need a constant outside stimulus to keep you awake? I like the beer commercial that says "this beer is for Steve, that thinks that if you are going to talk to someone in a bar, they should actually be in the bar". Another friend of mine, has a lot of female friends, most of which have a bit too much drama in their lives. He is constantly recieving texts from these girls. Each one will ask what he is going to do today, how he is feeling, etc, etc. He gets to the point that he wants to just throw his phone out the window because it wont stop beeping at him. It consumes a lot of his time to have to respond to endless texts about nothing. He says he wants them to stop, but doesn't know how to do it without "being rude". I suggest just calling them everytime they send a text. If it is important enough to text me, you must want to talk about something. After a while I'm sure the texters will realize, what they are typing is not of importance, and if it's not worth interupting someone with a phone call, it isn't worth interupting them with a text.
I'd also like to point out, the bulk of text messages involve at least one female. It's a girl sending a girl a text, or it's between a guy and a girl. For the most part guys don't text guys. If it's important, a guy will phone a guy. If it's not important, a guy wont bother contacting another guy. Girls like to talk, about nothing. A phone call is too invasive, so they just text. That way they can make it last all day, and they know the person on the other end is thinking about them all day, whether they want to or not.
I honestly think this will come full circle. It was so cool to be seen with a cellphone. You must be important if you had a cellphone! Now it's texting. Sorry, but your so important you can't talk to the people infront of you because other people need to know what color your new purse is!
Well guess what. I'm so important, and my time is so valuble, I don't have time to read your texts. You people are all slaves to your social media. You're lives must be very bland if you need to constantly be stimulated by nothing. Sorry, but the new cool thing is to be too imortant for any of that. Everyone can waste their time, with their faces burried in tiny little screens. Me, I've got a life to live.