How Sez Sees It

Social media seems to have taken over our lives. I am a big consumer of it myself. Is it contributing to us being happier or unhappier as a species though? My involvement in social media began as a teenager. You weren't 'cool' unless you had a Bebo account. Then, along came MySpace. With both social sites you could post pictures and personalise your home page to 'express the real you'. It was the age of the emo selfie (that scene kid look with the big fringes covering your eyes) and a time when pop punk like Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance were ruling the music scene. Along came the new kid on the block, Facebook. This was the one all the university students were signing up to and was a way of creating connections that would stay with you after you graduated and you could form business connections with. Although, that was the intention the reality was that it was a way of wasting half your life on simple games (Farmville), insulting strangers and sharing in...

There are times when I have to remind myself that everything gets better. I have a new job to start and before that I am going to Dublin and to see a friend of mine play with his band as support for another band and that should all make me happy and give me something to look forward to right? Wrong. I can't seem to focus on the positive things that are coming up in my life because I am not quite there yet. Those in my immediate are determined to make things as hard as possible. I am not talking my family or friends here either, just the other people you meet every day. Some of them are strangers to me and they fleetingly enter my world, cock something up and go again before they are even registered as existing by me. This leaves me with a strong sense that the whole effort is not worth it. I know I have to hang on to see if things will improve when I have a job and house and whatever. That is sort of keeping me going, but it is tough when you want an easier way out. On to...

I was feeling down lately so I thought I would try coming off of Twitter. I know what you are going to ask...how down? Then, why twitter? Well for about as long as I can remember I have had periods of real lows. I don't just mean feeling a little down in the dumps, I mean full on I could throw myself in front of a bus moments. This got worse (through reasons that don't need discussing here) and became full on depression about 6 years ago. I dealt with the worst of it, but it comes and goes in bouts. Now for the reason why Twitter as opposed to Facebook or Tumblr or some other social networking site. Facebook has a lot of family and close friends on it. People who I care about and who deeply care about me. They would notice if I wasn't around. Plus, I like talking to people on there. The messages can be as long or as short as you like and my personal experience is generally a good one on that website. Then there is Tumblr. That website is just a crazy world full of fando...