Follow for follow

Place: Office
Time: 3:30 PM
One of my younger colleague walks in. She stands next to my desk looking at me, "did you see my post today?" She asked me. This is when I was completely engrossed with my work and registering the question that she had asked me. Finally when I had understood her question I replied, " no I haven't yet. It has been a crazy day today. I'll see that later".
"Do you follow me on Instagram?" Another question from her.
"I really don't know. I am not much on social media," I responded thinking that social media for her is as casual as it is for me. But I was wrong. My colleague looked visibly hurt and offended. She said okay and walked off.

Few days later the same question was asked me by one of my nephews. My response was the same and he said that he needed to "educate" me on the rules of social media. According to him it is the standard rule of social media that if someone follows you then you are required to follow them back. If someone "likes" your post then it is your moral responsibility to like their posts as well. It is almost like a mandate. To me it was a bizarre rule. Then he said to me, "no wonder you guys keep losing so many friends and followers".

Despite him telling me about the apparent new generation rule of social media it still is bizzare to me. And here is my justification why I do not support "follow for follow" or "like for like".

On social media I follow only those people/accounts whom I really admire or I follow those accounts that are educational. No wonder my follow list is really short. But that is completely my choice. No one can tell me what I have to do with my account or profile. So at the end I will follow only those accounts in which I am genuinely interested.

Second, like for like is equally strange to me. Liking a post is optional and completely is a choice. It is not an obligation. I will like the post which I actually found useful or pleasing. I would not click "like" on a post only because they had liked my post. As I said it is a choice and not an obligation.

Now coming to the next aspect. What about people who follow me or like my post? I did not ask anybody to follow me or like on my posts. All my followers have started following me on their own accord. Hence I believe that neither they have any obligation towards me nor I have any obligation towards them.

Unfortunately currently we are living in the world where social media drives the relationships. I have seen the end of some of the friendships because of not showing enough love on social media. I have seen ending of multiple relationships because one of the partners was not ready to post their partner on social media. It is really unfortunate that social media is becoming the driving factor for retention or breaking of relationships.

Let me end this rant by stating an etiquette for the digital era: Your character is forever and social media is temporary. Stay in the reality and not in the cyberspace.