A few days ago, I was talking to an acquaintance and she was asking me if I had a phone. I told her I didn’t.
“You aren’t on Whatsapp?” she asked incredulously.
“No.” “Instagram?”
“Nope.”
“But Facebook, surely?”
“No…”
“Google Plus? Anything?”
“No, but I am on Goodreads-”
She didn’t seem to hear me. “You study too much,” she said, giving me a pitying look.
This was the most idiotic thing I’d heard all day, but of course, I couldn’t tell her that. So here I am, to tell everyone else.
I don’t get why all teens are expected to strut around waving their IPhones, listening to pop songs and taking selfies. Many of us aren’t like that. And is there some sort of unspoken agreement about how people who aren’t on any social networking sites are nerds, pushovers who succumb to parental pressure, losers, primitive organisms or People Not worth Knowing?
I don’t get it. People don’t believe me when I tell them the truth: I am genuinely not interested. That’s it.
Seriously, is it so abnormal that I don’t want to pressurize myself to take the perfect photo for a profile picture, or to make myself pout like a fish, or stick my tongue out or wink ridiculously for a photo so that people who don’t mean it can tell me I look gr8 or aMAzinG?Is it so weird that I don’t want to be in ask.fm where people I’ll never know about are given a free ticket to criticize and condemn me and can easily get away with it? Is it so unbelievable that I have better things to do?
Since nobody was going to believe me, I resorted to making excuses: How being on social networking sites would make me lose IQ points and how I didn’t want to get distracted, are some of the more plausible ones (and I know, that’s saying something).
But another thing I don’t get it is why people think you’re ‘too busy studying’ when you’re not on a social networking site. It’s not like I never use the internet. People are so consumed in Facebook and Whatsapp and whatnot that they forget how much more the internet has to offer. I come online to read blurbs on goodreads, watch videos, listen to music, download ebooks, check out blog posts and check my mail. Isn’t that something?
Apparently not.
Now I have to work out a more ‘credible’ answer to “You’re studying too much” than a snort and “Hardly.”
Thinking Out Of The Blog 