Life in ‘social’ age: The more we learn and more people we meet, the more we change

Email.

Username.

Password.

Sigh. Not again.

I recently set up yet another social media account. One of the sites that I frequented is no longer an enjoyable place to be thanks to decisions by the new ownership, and I need a replacement. We’re past the time when anyone should be surprised that social media plays a big part in people’s lives. Real connections can be made online.

Sure, if you had told me 15 years ago that I would make many real friends with common interests and agreeable personalities online, I would have doubted you. If you raised the same point 10 years ago, I would have a party full of friends to prove you right.

My longest online friendships began in the early 2000s. I joined a collection of moms from across are the country on an iVillage fitness message board, and we’re still friends, though without a focus on fitness. We all migrated over to a private Facebook group several years later and now offer each other advice, encouragement, laughs and comfort online and in the same airspace. I’ve even explored London with one of these women.

In the years since that migration, I’ve gone from complaining about each Facebook update, to rolling with them, to barely noticing them. I still miss Flair, though, and its digital buttons with meme-like graphics that you “pinned” on a cork board. I know that some of my friends miss certain versions of the timeline and organizational functions for posts and photos, or the ability to throw a sheep at someone (it was a thing), but we all adjusted and are now, mostly, in private groups or private message chains and not out in public. Isn’t it funny how something designed to bring people together is evolving into a way to keep ourselves shut off in small groups?

I’ve joined some other social media platforms that I just can’t make work for me, specifically Snapchat and TikTok. I like to watch the videos on the latter, but have no idea how to make one myself, and I’ve deleted the former from my life. Trying to figure it out nearly broke my self-confidence. Some favorite sites are now long dark, but I have many friendships with people that I met on them, like Google+. I just had drinks with a friend from a now closed KC based mom’s message board — run by this very newspaper. It’s where my podcast co-host and I met.

In the last 20-plus years, I’ve started other profiles on other social media platforms that no longer exist, like iVillage and Clammr (audio based, with 24-second audio clips) and some that I thought were gone, but are hanging on, like Ello, a niche site for creatives. Some took off and are a part of my life, like Instagram and Twitter.

But one of those is why I found myself trying to figure more passwords and claim my long-standing social media username on Mastodon and Post. I’ve grumbled more than once, “I too old for this,” but experience has taught me that eventually, I’ll grasp the social rules and purpose of each site. I’ll meet people and understand perspectives that I hadn’t been exposed to before. In time, what had been new and confusing will become familiar and comfortable. Or it won’t, but you don’t know unless you try.

We evolve. The more we learn and the more people we meet, the more we change. People come in and out of our lives for a reason or a season, and sometimes they stay for a lifetime. We move jobs, houses and cities — and with each new place, we meet new people, we forge new relationships and sever others. It’s past time that we be shocked when a social media site fails, even if it’s only failed for us. It’s time we see it for what it is: an opportunity.

Susan is a Kansas City based writer and podcaster. She is a co-host of the award winning and long running podcast, The History Chicks, and the host of a far less popular, A Slice from the Middle podcast. Her social media username is EssephVee.