Social Media Quotes

“Distracted from distraction by distraction”
― T.S. Eliot

“Behind him, he heard Ronan say, "I like the way you losers thought Instagram before first aid. Fuck off.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Blue Lily, Lily Blue

“I've seen it happen over and over again: a black person gets killed just for being black, and all hell breaks loose. I’ve tweeted RIP hashtags, reblogged pictures on Tumblr, and signed every petition out there. I always said that if I saw it happen to somebody, I would have the loudest voice, making sure the world knew what went down.

Now I am that person, and I’m too afraid to speak.”
― Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give

“Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco

“You are what you share.”
― Charles Leadbeater, We-Think : Mass Innovation, Not Mass Production

“People get addicted to feeling offended all the time because it gives them a high; being self-righteous and morally superior feels good.”
― Mark Manson, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

“An open Facebook page is simply a psychiatric dry erase board that screams, “Look at me. I am insecure. I need your reaction to what I am doing, but you’re not cool enough to be my friend. Therefore, I will just pray you see this because the approval of God is not all I need.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“I wish I knew how to quit you, Tumblr.”
― John Green

“How different would people act if they couldn't show off on social media? Would they still do it?”
― Donna Lynn Hope

“We cannot train ourselves to be perfect, but we can ensure we have better intuition when it comes to human behavior.”
― Milan Kordestani, I'm Just Saying: A Guide to Maintaining Civil Discourse in an Increasingly Divided World

“These days, in the world of apps and social media and … idiot friends, it is literally impossible to avoid spoilers.

If a character dies, it is gonna be the number one trending topic on Twitter, it is gonna be the top trending story on Facebook — and Reddit and Tumblr just turn into a completely uncensored memorial service of memes.

This happens all the time with sports results, but — I shit you not — I once got a notification from the BBC News app saying that a character in a show I was watching had just died! I thought that news notifications are supposed to be for impending natural disasters, not for just ruining my bloody afternoon.”
― Dan Howell

“It amazes me that we are all on Twitter and Facebook. By "we" I mean adults. We're adults, right? But emotionally we're a culture of seven-year-olds. Have you ever had that moment when are you updating your status and you realize that every status update is just a variation on a single request: "Would someone please acknowledge me?”
― Marc Maron, Attempting Normal

“People who smile while they are alone used to be called insane, until we invented smartphones and social media.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“My father was incredibly indecisive. As an example, take his wedding day. He couldn't decide where to sit in the getaway car, decide the fact he was supposed to be driving.”
― John Bennardo, Just a Typo: The Cancellation of Celebrity Mo Riverlake

“If you didn't already know, game show talent works fewer days a year than almost every profession, except maybe members of Congress.”
― John Bennardo, Just a Typo: The Cancellation of Celebrity Mo Riverlake

“I got the job as a Bingo host and did better than they imagined. Never before had they had an emcee so affable and funny, so enthusiastic to give away prizes, or so quick to make a tumor joke after calling out 'B-9'".”
― John Bennardo, Just a Typo: The Cancellation of Celebrity Mo Riverlake

“That's what's so great about the Internet. It allows pompous blow-hards to connect with other pompous blow-hards in a vast circle-jerk of pomposity.”
― Bill Maher

“This is what you do now to give your day topography--scan the boxes, read the news, see the chain of your friends reporting about themselves, take the 140-character expository bursts and sift through for the information you need. It's a highly deceptive world, one that constantly asks you to comment but doesn't really care what you have to say. The illusion of participation can sometimes lead to participation. But more often than not, it only leads to more illusion, dressed in the guise of reality.”
― David Levithan, Two Boys Kissing

“In social networks, the function of "friends" is primarily to heighten narcissism by granting attention, as consumers, to the ego exhibited as a commodity.”
― Byung-Chul Han, Müdigkeitsgesellschaft

“I urge you to find a way to immerse yourself fully in the life that you’ve been given. To stop running from whatever you’re trying to escape, and instead to stop, and turn, and face whatever it is. Then I dare you to walk toward it. In this way, the world may reveal itself to you as something magical and awe-inspiring that does not require escape. Instead, the world may become something worth paying attention to. The rewards of finding and maintaining balance are neither immediate nor permanent. They require patience and maintenance. We must be willing to move forward despite being uncertain of what lies ahead. We must have faith that actions today that seem to have no impact in the present moment are in fact accumulating in a positive direction, which will be revealed to us only at some unknown time in the future. Healthy practices happen day by day. My patient Maria said to me, “Recovery is like that scene in Harry Potter when Dumbledore walks down a darkened alley lighting lampposts along the way. Only when he gets to the end of the alley and stops to look back does he see the whole alley illuminated, the light of his progress.”
― Anna Lembke, Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence

“I think one of the reasons that I feel empty after watching a lot of TV, and one of the things that makes TV seductive, is that it gives the illusion of relationships with people. It's a way to have people in the room talking and being entertaining, but it doesn't require anything of me. I mean, I can see them, they can't see me. And, and, they're there for me, and I can, I can receive from the TV, I can receive entertainment and stimulation. Without having to give anything back but the most tangential kind of attention. And that is very seductive.
The problem is it's also very empty. Because one of the differences about having a real person there is that number one, I've gotta do some work. Like, he pays attention to me, I gotta pay attention to him. You know: I watch him, he watches me. The stress level goes up. But there's also, there's something nourishing about it, because I think like as creatures, we've all got to figure out how to be together in the same room.
And so TV is like candy in that it's more pleasurable and easier than the real food. But it also doesn't have any of the nourishment of real food. And the thing, what the book is supposed to be about is, What has happened to us, that I'm now willing--and I do this too--that I'm willing to derive enormous amounts of my sense of community and awareness of other people, from television? But I'm not willing to undergo the stress and awkwardness and potential shit of dealing with real people.
And that as the Internet grows, and as our ability to be linked up, like--I mean, you and I coulda done this through e-mail, and I never woulda had to meet you, and that woulda been easier for me. Right? Like, at a certain point, we're gonna have to build some machinery, inside our guts, to help us deal with this. Because the technology is just gonna get better and better and better and better. And it's gonna get easier and easier, and more and more convenient, and more and more pleasurable, to be alone with images on a screen, given to us by people who do not love us but want our money. Which is all right. In low doses, right? But if that's the basic main staple of your diet, you're gonna die. In a meaningful way, you're going to die.”
― David Foster Wallace

“I was basically born knowing how to casually stalk people on social media.”
― Becky Albertalli, The Upside of Unrequited

“لا نعلم ما إذا كان الفيسبوك يساهم في تحويلنا إلى مصحّ كبير أم أننا كنا نعيش في مصحّ كبير في الأصل والفايسبوك أخرج ذلك إلى العلن فحسب؛ في الحالتان، وضعنا كبشريّة في زمنننا الحالي مثير للاهتمام”
― طوني صغبيني, العيش كصورة: كيف يجعلنا الفايسبوك أكثر تعاسة

“We are continuously challenged to discover new works of culture—and, in the process, we don’t allow any one of them to assume a weight in our minds.”
― Alain de Botton

“Speak with caution. Even if someone forgives harsh words you've spoken, they may be too hurt to ever forget them. Don't leave a legacy of pain and regret of things you never should have said.”
― Germany Kent

“We are loved way more by some of the people who have not contacted us in the last twelve or so months than we are loved by some of those who contact us every twelve or so days … or hours.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Go to where you are kindest”
― Jaron Lanier, Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now

“That’s why everyone hates each other nowadays,’ he reckoned. ‘Because they are overloaded with non-friends friends. Ever heard about Dunbar’s number?’

And then he had told her about a man called Roger Dunbar at Oxford University, who had discovered that human beings were wired to know only a hundred and fifty people, as that was the average size of hunter-gatherer communities.”
― Matt Haig, The Midnight Library

“In the age of social media, friends are like snow flakes.
They descend in their thousands. They disappear in seconds.”
― Mouloud Benzadi