#hell take my roomie for example. one of my fav ppl in the world. we text- twit dm- discord dm- ig dm- reply to posts. thats five right?

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I’m going to paint you a picture of modern communication, and how it is fundamentally broken.

Let’s look at one friend. You chat pretty much everyday, and mostly talk to this person on twitter and discord, with occasional tumblr DMs. That’s three places you talk. But that’s actually not true, because you also have each other’s priv twitters and talk there as well. That’s four. Now account for, let’s say, one post reply per account per person, in addition to your DMs. That’s eight. But that’s ALSO not true, because not only do you talk in discord DMs with each other, but you’re in a friend group server as well! And you talk in those channels together! That’s nine.

This is one friend.

Now look around you. How many friends, how many mutuals are you in contact with. A few, a handful, a dozen, more? How many accounts per person do you have, how many places can you send each other posts, devolve into separate topics and conversations? How many people text you as well. Friends, family, coworkers? What do you do day to day around catching up, what IRL commitments will rip you away long enough to let the pile build again?

I can’t do it. I cannot live an actual life in the real world and balance this much interaction, it’s crushing. I reply to a friend’s post because I’m interested in the subject, I want to have a discussion! I WANT to talk about it with them, but I immediately kick myself for adding another conversation to the pile. Day by day, I ignore messages for hours on end and watch mountains pile around me, to reply en masse at the end of the night to let the cycle repeat. I wake up to six discord DMs and as I clear the third, the first replies back again.

We weren’t meant to have thirty simultaneous conversations. We weren’t. And you know in your bones that the number isn’t an exaggeration.

#hush catríona #this is essentially copy pasted from my twt last week but made a touch more coherent #iiiii spiral about this pretty regularly. i think this is the 4th or 5th time ive gone on this spiel bc its agonizing #i feel horrific guilt for ignoring messages for so long. and its absolutely voluntary. but i cant FUNCTION like this i cant DO it #i have friends where we talk Every Single Day and i LOVE them so much. so unfathomably much. but it KILLS me #hell take my roomie for example. one of my fav ppl in the world. we text- twit dm- discord dm- ig dm- reply to posts. thats five right? #i guess!!! but we also LIVE TOGETHER. i see them in real life and talk to them out loud with my voice and its still this much to add on!!!! #and i feel like nobody else talks abt this shit and it makes me feel crazy. am i the only person completely debilitated by this??? #i dont want this to come across as like ‘boohoo we get it ur sooo popular’ that is NOT what this post means #i think a lot of ppl big acct or small. fandom or otherwise. talk to a dozen ppl online. and i dont get how anyone copes #this is agony. and every single time i ever make a post? its another opportunity to add to the pile #i only reply to comments on posts on twt and this is why. i cant DO it i cant keep up. i see every tag and im so grateful but i cant ever #reach out. i cant add to the pile. theyre already taller than me