Here is why you should stay off Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and Facebook

It’s 2004, before Facebook became a Nigerian phenomenon, Uncle Chidi was struggling with MySpace and Hi5.

It was so bad that pressure from home was forcing him into the arms of the Ogbanje that is Aunty Kemi, the banker who once broke a woman’s head because she thought Uncle Chidi even looked at her.

Uncle Chidi meanwhile met the ideal woman in University, but his demonic tendencies were in regular slack level familiarities with his village people’s emissaries.

He cracked Uju’s heart like an egg. She was hurt and left. But since Kemi came into his life, he’s had been rumbling with Hi5 to keep his mind of his terrorist girlfriend, while hoping to bump into Uju.

This was 2004 and he never did. Uju got married three months before to his need to find her. He found her in Facebook in 2007 after he had wasted time and energy through 2007. Omashe o…

Fast forward 2009, he’s still stalking Uju who posting mushy pictures often, to gush about her ‘good man’ hubby or describe just how perfect her 2-year old daughter’s shoes look while posting the good life on holidays to TINAPA and things. Chidi, still not married neglected his equally good life and longed for another he deemed perfect.

He also failed to fight for his new girlfriend, Fatimah, who left him because she thought him emotionally unavailable and a distant lover, probably because his heart still longed for Uju.

In 2011, Chidi is married to Onyinye whom he managed to beg after it became clear she was a good woman he grew to love deeply. On one good July afternoon in Victoria Island, Lagos, Chidi bumped into Uju’s university best friend, Jennifer who told him Uju had relocated to the London in 2010 to get away from her abusive husband.

An awestruck Chidi argued for a second that it couldn’t have been possible. Alas, he agreed that social media isn’t all it seems.

That was what Facebook — the inaugural social platform for Nigeria — brought to us; an avenue to find alternative fun, connect with people, swear wild oaths by meeting strange people of the opposite sex for wonderful Rendezvous and waste our money on subscription while it tensions us with the ‘perfect’ lives of others.

ALSO READ: Lagos is messing with my mental health

Are we tensioning ourselves though? Does it mess with our mental well being?

Social media is social media and what you see is what people want you to see. Only those who believe they have better lives than most people, probably while living it up in America or England or Malaysia pain social media black and blue with their pictures.

Even those ones still keep some things off social media. Everyone wants to be their best selves for the camera. There is a need for perfection for the audience that is friends and followers and you have to feed their minds enough with whatever market you sell to keep them around and keep the validation through likes and comments.

The truth is, nobody has a perfect life on social media. Sometimes too, our insecurities and the construction of our minds lead us to paint that Yoruba Demon with 6,000 followers as a Lekki dweller, who works with Mobil and drives a convertible BMW when he’s just another nigga who jumps danfo and hustles like the average guy.

Sometimes too, those people didn't create those stereotypes, you created an image of them in your head.

Last year, a 27-year old Lawyer-female friend to this scribbler messaged him about her decreasing quality of mental health. She was called to the Nigerian bar in 2015 and only slaves away at a demeaning job in Abuja that pays her a meager NGN45,000 monthly. On top of that, she struggles to keep a relationship despite her obvious beauty.

Men either cheat her or are unwilling to stay.

She felt checking Facebook to see pictures of her friends, out of the country or working with good companies or married, with kids sends her spiraling that she quit social media. I had to let her know that nothing is what it seems. She still stayed off social media for a long time, till she came back this year.

We never understand that everyone has what he or she deals with, even though they have things that make them happy. While staying off social media is reasonable, we all need to manage our expectations. It’s why we keep getting surprised when we see people in real life and they are only human, not demi-gods with a halo, white wings and the full grace of a celestial being.

Stay woke, and limit your affinity to what social media paints you.

ALSO READ: Know the extent of Tramadol abuse in Borno State, Nigeria

But then, can we or is it about addiction?

In 2017, a writer likened social media to cocaine, or in the more Nigerian sense, skunk or Igbo. He claimed our mental health has been altered by the concept of likes and retweets so much that when we don’t get them, we aim for them and get angry when we don’t get them. Even worse, we compare ourselves to those who get them regularly and perceive them as ultra-special people, with the spirit of Moremi or Amadioha.

Bros, there is no way you can over-scrutinize at that level if you are not close to something to see how it works just like you cannot know a Yoruba demon if you are not close to one or you have not sold one a cone of ice-cream. *winks*

This level of addiction is unhealthy and has a long-lasting effect that causes a lack of focus, distracts and impairs concentration. Even when you have a 9–5 where you get hounded by your boss - who could be a sexual predator - you also have another job on social media where you feel appreciated and people of the opposite sex flock into your mentions in droves everytime you post a picture.

To highlight your dominance as the regal creature you are, you never respond directly to ones you don’t know as we have to keep the bloodlines pure. Na dem dey rush you after all. That also includes the ‘Thanks for ACCEPT my friend’s request’ clan on Facebook.

Incredibly, you also have to be mad enough to sustain this life. The distraction takes your time enough to help your village people split your time productive endeavours and pro bono slay duties of social media where you reign supreme over a herd of subjects when you really slave in real life. The only thing you ever get off social media is the odd dirty money to market fake campaigns by using iPhone Xs you don’t have. Cc: #LagosIsClean

Your mental health is being trifled with, Ladies and gentlemen. Have you ever finished social media and gotten exhausted? Yes, it drains you while you calculate and measure the right content to garner more praise off. This is worse on Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat.

With Facebook, you are more likely to be tensioned out of your head as people only tend to post good parts of their lives ad brag about their trips to London the first time they get a stamped passport. In that group chat, you wey never pass Lagos, and unable to engage in the conversation log out. Incredibly, you check out and move on. Ego shattered Episode 1,000,000.

There is no hiding place for you. Your village people are working overtime. So why don’t you stop helping them and stay off their primary means of monitoring your life because make no mistake, alujonu, ogbanje and the internet are in cahoots these days. They probably use Skype in covens.

After you stay off and you probably make it, don’t go see them o. A word is enough for the wise. Sadly, most people, including this scribbler will not heed.