7 Experiences Social Media Ruined

1. Arguments

We used to be able to argue for hours about who that one guy on that one episode of that one television show was. Now, you just pull out your phone and Google it. I miss those arguments. I miss the fire in your eyes.  Now we have to find something else to talk about until the waitress gets back. 

2. Communicating With My Young Cousins

Actual sentence posted on social media by a young relative: “Oook Bi Felicia! Dy Felicia! Lok @dat thot doh! Eye canot wit her doh udon no meh! I sta on 1!”

WHAT DOES THAT SAY?!??! ARE ANY OF THOSE THINGS WORDS? IS MY BABY COUSIN HAVING A STROKE?!?!?!?!

3. Dating

I used to just get rejected every time I went to a bar, or a party, or a club, or through an entire 24-hour period, without anyone talking to me. Now I also am rejected every time I turn on my phone or computer and no one has clicked on my picture and said they wanted to talk to me. And my phone doesn’t provide nachos, so it isn’t as fun this way.

4. My Solitude

Sometimes, I feel like my phone is attacking me with constant demands for communication. 

I’m not crazy, I’m an introvert. Well, I’m not the dangerous kind of crazy. Fine! Leave me alone.

5. My Sense of Safety

There is now a little box in my pocket that tells me every time someone gets murdered.  It would be like if reporters knocked on your door, came into your house, and listed all the murders in your neighborhood for you. Then, as you stood there all stunned and feeling like maybe you aren’t as safe as you thought you were, and just as the reporter was walking out the door, and you were re-evaluating your sense of yourself as a member of a community, the reporter turned around and was like, “Oh, and also a ton of people get raped, and a bunch of politicians said rape isn’t a real thing, so just keep in mind that in the statistically very likely chance that you get raped, don’t like count on the government to do anything about it, ok? Bye Felicia!”

Why does this information follow me around? STOP POSTING THESE ARTICLES ON MY WALL! But don’t; I feel the need to “keep an eye on things.”

6. Death

Death on Facebook makes me uncomfortable. People writing on your wall to say they miss you… do you get internet access in Heaven? Can we come up with an official policy on what type of status updates it is just too weird to “like” and then add death announcements to that list? Why do people stay on Facebook after they die? Does mourning being done in such a detached and public manner make your death more or less real? Will I ever be done paying off those philosophy classes I took in college?

7. My Experience of Humanity 

If the internet didn’t exist, this fraught expression of anxiety would just be a letter I sent to a friend. If I communicate with a machine, do I become one?

Ashley Nicole Black dropped out of her Ph.D. program to focus on comedy. Her mother is super proud. You can follow her @ashleyn1cole.