Friend or Follower?

Who is my friend and who is my follower?

I remember asking myself this question around my birthday in March of this year. Shortly after, I deleted the Instagram app from my phone and deactivated the account in the first week of April.

There was nothing new in this behaviour. I had done this many times but somewhere I knew that this one was going to be different and I can say now after staying away for 4 months that it’s true.

Let me try and tell you the subtle differences I have experienced without trying to sound like many anti-smartphone people around the internet (I love them)

See, Instagram changed my life. Back in 2015, I met most of my close friends on the same “Photowalk” that used to happen frequently around that time, and the celebrities amongst them would be the “Suggested” people. I was this awkward fella, new to the city and in desperate need of new friends and this said walk changed the course of my social life. So this app gave a lot to me but things about the app changed.

There was a time when the comment section on everyone’s post used to be a discussion portal. This was one of the things that I saw changed drastically. The emojis took over emotions. I used to find it odd that I would see a beautiful video or photo posted and my natural urge to comment on it would be a Heart emoji or a sparkle emoji. There was nothing else I could type that I felt would be appropriate for the moment. I felt the language that was accepted was emoji and I had to only speak that.

I have no access to anyone’s story anymore. So when my friends come back from vacation, I ask them to show me the cool photo they took and usually I have questions for a lot of them. This is a subtle change that has come. Earlier, it was another photo in the sea of unlimited photos. Now it’s a deeply personal 1:1 interaction with a friend that would have never happened if I had seen the story and replied with a red heart to it.

This is how I am a friend and not a follower.

Again, no access to stories, meant that I usually have no idea if someone I know is doing something new unless they mention it in a conversation or I get to know through someone else. This again gives me material to talk about when I interact with that person. I feel the bigger epidemic is that all of us have forgotten how to talk to each other beyond “How’s it going?” and “How is the weather” This is something I am actively trying to overcome. This means that I have to become a better listener. When someone is talking about something that they want to talk about, there must be genuine follow-up questions. You will be surprised to realise how many long conversations in your DMs were stopped after the emoji emotion came as a reply.

Unsurprisingly, the content that I now get on my YouTube and here on substack is about people who are not on social media and their experience and it is always the same style of writing where it starts with the statistics of how many people are averaging more than 5 hours of screen time and then leads to the fact that this data made them rethink their relationship and then the action and then the results. Almost all the articles I have read here have followed the same format.
For the most part, this substack has been a diary for me where since November of 2020, I have made a note to myself of where my life has taken me and the person I am becoming. So my experience of staying away this time is in no way trying to preach to you that you must do it too. This is solely for me. My checkpoint.

Yesterday, I ditched my smartphone and went to get coffee and carried my backup flip phone. I never carry cash and am heavily dependent on UPI so I kept the phone in my bag and told myself not to pick it up until the time for payment comes. This was freaking fantastic. Usually, I would sit at the coffee bar take my phone out and listen to a book or a podcast. But this phone had none of those so instead, you guessed it - chatted with my friend who is the owner/barista and in conversation told him that I want to properly learn how to make my own cortado. Ten minutes later, the cafe was empty and he invited me to come over to the counter and taught me how to pull a shot. I am convinced this would have never happened if I was on my phone scrolling through something.

of course, I took notes.

I feel somewhere along the lines of superficiality of things. I forgot how to be a friend and only serve the follower. If you ask me, they are two completely different beings. These past few months, I may have not had access to a lot of new things my friends are doing in real-time but I have called and spoken and have written long emails to many and had a better interaction compared to all the DMs I have sent over the years. There is no competition and I would like to keep it like this as much as I can. For now, the goal I have given myself is six months of being away and then one week of being back to gauge how it feels. We will see in October.

Being a friend to someone is hard work. Just like being a partner is. There needs to be a level of trust that should make us take our masks off and be who we truly are when we are around friends. No pretence.

Art by Xue Jiye, When The Black Light Comes In.

till next time,
tijbed.