This guest post comes from one of my students. My thanks to Hannah for allowing me to share this with the blogosphere:
We are all so busy faking it that no one is stopping to enjoy the experience
Our generation is the first to be so
completely immersed and exposed to social-media. Going out to dinner with friends is now a
difficult task due to the fact I have to fight with a cellphone for their
attention. I challenge people to go out and look around a café, a place once
used for family bonding and friends gossiping. It is now a haven for young
girls to take photos of their food to post on Instagram; friends next to them ignored
while they message to people on Facebook that would be ignored too if placed in
the same room. As young people it is no longer about having fun. It’s about
putting all our time and energy into making it seem like we’re having fun to
everyone else who are of course, glued to social-media doing the exact same
thing.
Social-media has been defined as the many
relatively inexpensive and widely accessible electronic tools that enable
anyone to publish and access information, collaborate on a common effort, or
build relationships. Build relationships? I can’t think of a more opposite
way to describe how we are using social-media as a generation. Our brains are
full of things we don’t need to know. Is it really important that I’m aware
that my auntie’s husband’s distant cousin is getting married? I don’t think so,
but this is what I’d probably learn if I were browsing a Facebook newsfeed. Facebook
and other similar sites are fountains of knowledge about the lives of people
that we are likely to have met only once.
We let strangers know where we are for
dinner, the names of all our close friends and family, our school and where we
live. They have access to all this pointless information that they would only
really want to know if they planned on stalking us. So why is it that so many girls my age want
to post their personal details and portraits online. Well it all comes down to
this – attention. As young people we are all stuck with the idea that (sorry to
be cliché) the world revolves around us. As much as we would love this to be
true it’s not, but having a couple of hundred people you don’t know on a
social-media site complimenting every one of your pictures sure makes us
feel like it is. Teenagers crave attention. Whether we are obvious about it
or not, we are in an awkward stage where all we want is to be reassured that our
flaws mean nothing and that we are truly wonderful human beings. Social-media
can help us with that.
Although people may see this is a positive,
I totally disagree. Yes there is the girl who gets constantly told she is
beautiful and perfect but when she falls in love she will probably be ditched as
she is always searching for attention and if she doesn’t get it she’s
irrationally insecure. Or the boy who gets bullied at school and is sent
abusive messages daily that eventually lead him to think that he is worth so
little that he kills himself. Either way it’s not helping anyone.
When we do not have our posts acknowledged in
a positive way by those who we consider friends it can lead to feelings of
inadequacy. We start to doubt that friendship in a way we never would if not for
social-media. If say someone was having a conversation with a friend over
Facebook and one said something unintentionally offensive to the other, there
is no time to think before acting. In an angry and upset immediate response
something could be said that would cause a massive argument between friends
just because one message got misinterpreted.
Often our immediate reaction to something
negative that has been said to us is far more irrational and dramatic then it
is when we have calmed down and thought things through. That is exactly where
instant messenger apps go wrong. Not to mention the fact that it is far easier
to admit personal feelings or say something hurtful to someone via keyboard
than it is face to face. I believe this is a huge downfall for our generation.
The conversations that are most private and personal are the exact
conversations we should have while talking not texting, messaging or using any
other form of social-media. Otherwise how are we supposed to communicate
properly, in friendships, family, romance or in a work place? We need to be
capable of sharing our honest and unguarded selves in person not over the
Internet.
What else does more social-media mean? It
means loving ourselves less. While we are so hung up on the opinion of others,
how many likes a photo on Instagram got or who commented on our profile
picture, we don’t realize that we’re letting our own opinion of ourselves
become less significant. When we give power to others who ‘follow’ us on
social-media sites we lose strength in ourselves. Teens are often insecure, and
this is just fueling the fire. There is no need for social-media at all. My
parents got along fine when they were my age and all they had was an exchange
of one letter a week between New Zealand and England. They didn’t however have
the constant instant gratification that our generation does. In other words –
when we want something we want it now. I’m not sure if this attitude came
before apps like instant messenger or those apps fueled the whole thing in the
first place. Yet, it doesn’t really matter because in my eyes it’s always going
to have a negative impact on our generation.
Busying ourselves with taking photos of a
place we have barely looked at ourselves so we can show all our ‘friends’ what
a great time we’re having is not only ridiculous it’s sad. The biggest issue
these social-media sites cause can be summed up in five words – not living in
the moment. It may sound cheesy but it saddens me. The fact that we are all so
busy faking it that no one is stopping to enjoy the experience. Some things in
life should be seen or heard by one person a secret memory that you can store
in your mind not on the Internet. After all if the view is that beautiful, the
food is that amazing or you’re having the time of your life you wouldn’t be
thinking about what caption to put on your Instagram post!
