David Shingler's Stream of Consciousness

“I don’t really speak to him anymore.” That’s how I ended a conversation this week and it got me thinking, why don’t I really speak to him anymore?

The him in question is someone I met online, but him can be transferred to a number of people that I’ve met online over the last few years. My interactions with people have dwindled, my engagement with other peoples content is almost non existent and my desire to post on social media is at an all time low. Maybe that’s why I’ve chosen to revisit this blog. This is something that I am posting for me, getting my thoughts down “on paper” in an attempt at some sort of self improvement. But the question still remains – why?

Let’s go back a few years – It’s 2020, the bulk of us are sitting at home being told to not leave our houses by our governments. None of us know what is really going on and we’re all just trying to adapt to this “new normal” (I’m glad that isn’t a thing anymore). We’re shopping online, watching Tiger King and generally turning to the internet for everything. Businesses are moving to online sales, restaurants are turning to online services for deliveries and so many people in the arts are using social media as a way to keep themselves in the limelight. Celebrities are starting podcasts and writing books. Even I relaunched my podcast which is something I never thought I would do! But in relation to this post, the general public have turned to social media as a way of keeping contact with the outside world.

My choice of social media platform was Instagram. It’s no big secret that I’m a lover of physical media when it comes to music and it turns out there are many many people out there that share my passion and seem to enjoy looking at others and sharing their own music collection. Before I knew it I was a member of a small corner of the Instagram Vinyl Community.

Without going into great detail about every post shared, it was an amazing time. I made friends, and not just internet friends, but real friends. People that I am happy to have in my life and plan on having them stick around for as long as possible. Some I have met in real life and some are still images and words on a screen (I’m working on getting to see you, I promise) but they have all equally played a part in making life just that little bit better.

“But the internet isn’t real life Dave. You’re just seeing what people want you to see.”

I get that, I really do. I also like to think that I’m pretty good at seeing the attempts to build an alternative persona online for the people that don’t want you to know the real them. Me myself, I’m pretty transparent and I believe that transparency attracts transparency. Even if you don’t agree with the things a say, at least you know I’m being honest. Anyway, I digress…..

Since the world started to get back to normal my online interaction with people has almost ground to a halt. But it’s not just me. These things seem to work both ways. But why is this? There are people that I would talk to everyday just last year. Messages, video calls, voice notes, social collaborations; you name it and we did it. But all that seems to have just gone away and not just in my small circle. I’ve noticed there’s a lack of vinyl community collaborations these days. So what happened? Have we all burnt out? Did we do so much during the pandemic that we simply don’t want to anymore? Are there other influences across social media that make us not want to use it as much, for example, forced opinions from the left and right, virtue signalling, causes that we simply have no time for? Even if this is the case and we don’t feel the need to post as much, are we staying in touch with each other still?

I have no real answers. Maybe it’s just a case of complacency. The same reason you haven’t called a family member for a while, that “I’ll do it tomorrow” mentality. But for the record, there is a handful of people that I met during this time that no matter if we haven’t spoke for some time, I will always consider you real friends and not just pictures and words on a screen.

Photo by Gabriel Benois on Unsplash