Social media won’t let the past be in the past

Over the past 5 odd years social media has exploded on the internet and how. From being the exclusive "thing" for Harvard students to my mother having an account, everyone is on the social media bandwagon in some way. We know the merits of social media; keeping in touch, getting in contact with long lost friends/family, sharing photos and videos etc... But has anyone stopped and thought that these advantages not only extend to people we want to be in touch with. They also extend to people we want to get "rid" off and/or forget.

So you have a friend or a boyfriend or girlfriend and the relationship has gone bad. You want to move on with life and have broken things off with them in real life. You don't meet them, you don't talk to them. You have deleted their all the sms they sent and their number from your phone. You have deleted all the emails, photos and chats you have had. However you log onto Facebook and see their photos and videos and status updates, which are constant reminders of them. Logically you decide to remove them from your 'online' life too. In theory it sounds simple. Remove the said person, X, from your 'friends list', block them or put them on limited profile.

However what about the shared network of 'friends' you and X share? As long as you have some link with X you can't truly remove them from your online social network even if you can erase them from your offline life. Say X got married and common friends were at the wedding. Photos of X's wedding would be posted by the common friend and you will see them. You might not want to but you would. It is only human nature to be curious and want to know, "So what happened to X?". Worse still another common friend refers to X in their status update and you remain paranoid about what the status means in regards to you. Even though you have removed X from your offline life, you cannot 100% remove them from your online life. Unless of course you go on a deleting rampage and remove your entire network of common friends.

There might be periods of lull and you would convince yourself that you are over things and everything is in the past. You move on and learn to smile again. However that smile is hostage to that one activity on Facebook which brings the past back, right in front of you on your computer screen. It opens the wounds, the self-doubts, the sadness, the anger and the resentment.

In social media it is almost impossible to get closure about breakups and to move on with life. That is the double edge sword, you are always connected and in touch. Even when you don't want to be. Social media won't let the past be in the past.