Social media is a concept which has grown exponentially throughout my lifetime. I have watched this type of online community grow from Friendster to Myspace to Facebook over the 18 years I have been alive. If we want information about another person, or if we want to check in on someone, instead of giving them a call or knocking on their front door, all we do is check what is happening on their social media accounts and we’ll probably be able to find what they ate for breakfast(depending on what type of information they post).
This concept that we can discover nearly everything about another person through social media has completely ruined our ability to communicate with others in real life. We no longer push ourselves to communicate with others when the conversation lulls at the dinner table, instead we pull out our phones and send pictures of what we are doing to other people, in order to create this sort of illusion about ourselves online. Our online presence presents a synopsis of how our lives our going to those we know who don’t witness it everyday. Instead of being authentic with how our lives are, we instead try to be the most impressive versions of ourselves that we can be.
Social media has created the possibility to present yourself to others in the way that you want to be seen, and in this way you actually strip about who you genuinely are. Especially in college, when it’s very easy to hide your past, you can use social media as a way to cover up what your life really is.
It’s easy to formulate this glamorous facade of all of the adventures you’re going on in a new city, with your new friends, in your new persona to all of the other new people that you are meeting, and to your friends back home. It’s more difficult to try and maintain a bit of truth in your social media accounts. It’s more difficult to be true to yourself nowadays when it is so much easier to only present the positive side of your life to your media.
I’d like to challenge you to share something real this week; post something on snapchat, instagram, or facebook that is a real representation of who you are, regardless of how many likes you’ll receive or who you want to impress. Post something that is of importance to you, and interests you; be honest about who you are. It’s scary to do, but it might just show you who appreciates the real you.