Going Analog

When it’s time to take a break from social media and engage in real life, here are some new groups that will help you connect beyond the screen

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For a lot of people, social media has become a war zone, or, at least, an unnecessarily brutal reminder of our country’s divided beliefs, convictions and “truths.”  

How many people have you hidden on Facebook? My number is in the dozens. And they aren’t just people I find unpleasant or with whom I disagree. Some simply have the habit of sharing articles that yank me out of my day too often. I reach my limit and click “no, I don’t want to follow.” I’ll check your page when I can handle it.

Is that privilege? Yes.

Is it self-care? Yes, that, too.

But I don’t want to permanently hide my head in the virtual sand, ignoring everything or listening only to voices that agree with me.

It isn’t about signing off entirely, just stepping back. Going analog for a while.

I’m far from the only one in Richmond who feels this pull toward meeting in person and establishing what feel like more authentic connections. Less shouting into the void and more talking rationally face to face. Feeling like part of a real community. Meeting strangers.

Here’s what some Richmonders are doing about it.

On Tuesday mornings at 8 a.m., Ryan Rinn does scream into the void, along with a few other bold souls who venture to the T. Tyler Potterfield pedestrian bridge on the James River. It’s the weekly scream, an event prompted by a friend’s Facebook status, a frustrated “AHHHHHHHHHHH” in reaction to a recent headline. “Why don’t we do that in real life?” Rinn wondered.  

“It’s intentionally silly,” says Rinn, the executive director of the Storefront for Community Design, “and it’s a great way to release anxiety and anger. I’m getting better at screaming. When I started [in February], it was all up in my throat.”

One week, he screamed by himself, but most weeks Rinn has a few compatriots. The river’s rush often drowns out the noise, so it’s not frightening to those who find themselves on the bridge with the screamers, unaware.

Show up at the Potterfield Pedestrian Bridge on Tuesdays at 8 a.m. to scream your head off.

Politics is an underlying reason for some of the shrieking, but there are other reasons, too. Many screamers don’t explain; they just let it out. They arrive around 8 and are gone by 8:20, ready to start the day, feeling a bit of earned peace and solidarity, Rinn says. “They’ve shut it all down and gone back to being engaged in real ways that they can smell, hear and feel.”

Having come to Richmond from Texas in 2000 to attend college (he has degrees from the University of Richmond and Virginia Commonwealth University), Rinn appreciates working on Broad Street downtown, where every day he meets people face to face. In the past several years, particularly, “There’s a reinvestment in what it means to be a neighbor,” he says. “It’s part of the benefit of living in a city. People are very friendly.”

For Paul Cassimus, building community involves a less primal approach (and much less screaming): Last spring, he started a free yoga class in the grassy field in front of the Carillon in Byrd Park; it ran Tuesday nights through October. Cassimus plans to continue it this spring and summer, beginning in April.

“I just wanted to do something for the community,” says Cassimus, who owns King of Pops, maker of all-natural ice pops. He called a yoga instructor who was too busy to lead the outdoor class but led him to Michelle Landon of One Drop Yoga, who leads pop-up yoga classes in nontraditional venues around the city, and she was game. Most of Cassimus’ collaborations are food-related, which makes sense, but health and fitness — as well as enjoying nature — are equally important to him.

Free yoga takes place at the Carillon on Tuesdays, 6:30 to 7:30 p.m., April through October, except in inclement weather.

And yes, once class is over, he gives away ice pops. It didn’t feel quite right to invite people to a free yoga class and then sell pops, he says with a laugh. The class is for all levels, including children. And men, too, Cassimus jokes, noting that they were underrepresented last year. Just bring a mat or a beach towel to the park, he says.

Cassimus grew up in Roswell, Georgia., which he calls “the Short Pump of Atlanta,” but he considers Richmond his home, having lived here since 2009. After earning his teaching license at UR, he taught Spanish for the Henrico County school system. But the pull of owning a business, like so many of his Greek-born relatives do, took him in the direction of selling gourmet pops. Today, Cassimus lives blocks away from his brick-and-mortar shop in Scott’s Addition.

“I’m just meeting people out and about,” he says of his life in Richmond. “We’re sharing experiences.”

This is what Sarah Choi does, too. Born and raised in Korea, she moved to Richmond in 2013 to live closer to her sister, Seo. Choi works as a marketing consultant, but you also may know her as the former owner of Shoryuken Ramen, the noodle restaurant that was on the 900 block of West Franklin Street. When the restaurant was open, she had an easy time seeing friends because she encouraged them to stop by. Today, as a freelance entrepreneur, Choi has to figure out the best way to create opportunities to spend time with her friends.

Because she’s an outgoing person, Choi likes introducing people and helping them make connections, whether personal or business-related. Often, she makes new connections through Twitter and Instagram, where you can follow her at sarahchoi.rocks. She’s one of those great connectors, Richmond’s own Kevin Bacon.

For details about IGers of RVA happy hours, follow Sarah Choi on Instagram at sarahchoi.rocks or at her website, sarahchoi.rocks.

“I’m a natural extrovert,” Choi says. “People give me energy, but Instagram is a very introverted way to engage.” The app also can offer a very filtered view of the world, where you see pictures from idyllic vacations or children at their cutest, or the dog when she’s being particularly adorable. Good hair days. We don’t usually see the overflowing dishwasher or the spat between roommates.

But Choi has figured out one way to bring the people behind their Instagram accounts into real focus: inviting them out for monthly IGers of RVA happy hours in Richmond. Often, they become her friends, too.

“I think of social media as another way to meet people,” she says. “It’s not an end in itself. I think people are lonely — not ‘single vs. married’ lonely — but it’s a connection that’s been filtered.”    

In my experience, trying to meet new people and expand your circle can be a little difficult, especially if you’re shy. An activity — yoga, happy-hour drinks, even screaming — can ease the discomfort. But sometimes you just need to plunge ahead and do something that’s uncomfortable. We all get over it, and we may learn something in the process.

On a recent Sunday morning, I went to Urban Farmhouse to meet strangers and intentionally have a conversation on a predetermined topic. It’s a thing I do for a living all the time but not often in my personal life, so I felt a little unsure of myself. I hoped this wasn’t a secret ploy to sell me something.

Seated at the end of a long table were two women and a man, all more than a decade younger than I am. I got a coffee and said hello. Then we spent an hour talking about technology and how it affects our ways of communicating and having common experiences. Afterward, I felt good. Despite the topic, which touches on generational differences, I didn’t feel isolated from my fellow conversationalists, as I might have been if this had taken place online.  

And if you’d like to be part of The Conversationalists-RVA, email Fionnuala Bradley at the.conversationalists.rva@gmail.com.

Fionnuala Bradley started The Conversationalists-RVA a few months ago, modeled after a program called Tea With Strangers in San Francisco, where she previously lived. Six people — strangers or acquaintances — join to have an in-depth, hourlong discussion on a topic, but tangents are welcome. It’s a little like a book club without a book. At the start of our conversation, Bradley read a quote about the fragmentation of shared experiences because of technological advances, but our conversation meandered from texting to streaming video to album cover art.

Talking to strangers — or even people she works with — in an intimate way doesn’t come easily to Bradley, who works as a violence-prevention educator at Quin Rivers, a nonprofit based in New Kent County. She joined Tea With Strangers because she didn’t know anyone in San Francisco and was having a hard time making connections through more narrowly defined interest groups or through dating apps. Tinder isn’t for making friends, she learned.

“I’ve always struggled with social anxiety. I don’t know if it’s me or a social condition,” she says, pointing to her smartphone. “I benefit from structures. I’m a big professional boundary person.” The structure of The Conversationalists’ events gives her more comfort, as does the experience of facilitating discussions. She hopes to expand the group and involve more facilitators.

“We have our own sets of boundaries, especially with family or friends,” Bradley says. “I think those anxieties really hinder us.”

Bradley is a millennial, and she sees that some of her generation’s same habits — over-dependence on cell phones and less openness in face-to-face conversations — are even more prevalent among younger people, like the middle schoolers she works with. It can be challenging to get them to talk sometimes.

“My work with children is very conversation-based,” she says. “We talk about relationships. They’re the experts in what they’re facing.”

That’s true of all of us. We are the experts in what we see, hear and experience daily, and yet this knowledge sometimes gets lost in the flood of information we ingest.

Or it’s denied by others who haven’t felt the same things we’ve felt. As the signs and memes say, “Just because you haven’t experienced something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.” And yet, this is the root of so much disconnect, so much strife online.

Amy Turman, a licensed clinical social worker who conducts outpatient therapy in Chesterfield County, says that like most things, when one part of your life -- say, Facebook rants -- takes over the rest of it, “we tend to veer off balance.” Her clients with social discomfort may talk about close friendships with people they’ve never met in person, which can make their worlds very small and overly dependent on screen time.

“People’s attention spans are much shorter,” Turman says. “They cannot get through a session without their phones. People really, really struggle with that.”

Of course, some of us have been burned one too many times on social media.

And we learn from that experience. We leave Twitter, we shut down our Facebook pages. We unfriend people we may have known for years. We stop talking to a family member. Something happened to that person, we say. And so, our bubbles contract further. Turman says it is perfectly acceptable to take a break from people who make us angry and upset, or stay off Facebook or Twitter for a week or a month. She also encourages friends and patients to get active, whether it’s for a political cause or some other reason.  

Something has happened to all of us, it’s true. It can’t be fixed online. But maybe if we meet on the bridge and scream into the rushing river, we can make a start.