Loss and the Unknown

    Today I have found myself checking in on an Instagram account more than once, hoping the account owner would update the status of her rescue rabbit. The rabbit had been sick and was taking medication in the last post a week ago. Also, one of my friends on another social media site has just lost her dog. 

    Social media has a way of making you feel awful and experiencing someone else's loss through a social media post is an insidious way of keeping people hooked on this aspect of the Internet.  Speaking of insidious, the social media site itself is insidious, the way it convinces you that you need to use it and use it frequently. I don't want to call it an addiction. What it does is replace what you would otherwise have to leave your house for. Interpersonal communication as easy and as quick as a few keystrokes. 

    Tonight one of the social media sites is experiencing some pretty massive glitches. Some people who use it a lot because it's replaced other forms of communication are frustrated. Some are speculating this is the beginning of the end of the website. More loss. And people will feel this loss with an impact akin to losing a friend or a loved one. Communities have been built on this site and those community members will feel a huge loss as they are scattered across the Internet, each migrating to other social media sites. 

    I could write volumes about the broken site and its owner but I'm trying to keep this space peaceful. I will say this: we will all experience a great sense of loss if the site does permanently fail. It will pain us, aggravate us, and we will lose some long-term friends as we scatter. But we also need to take a moment to think about those families, physical in-person friends, and things that used to be hobbies and interests that have taken a back seat in our lives and ask ourselves why we don't feel their loss as much as we will the loss of the bits of data that make up that website.