Every Sunday morning, I wake up to my mom at the dining room table reading the New York Times in her pajamas. Next to her, my little sister, eating a bowl of cereal, scrolling through her phone, catching up on all that happened in the world while she was asleep. My grandparents live just a few blocks north of us, and they too sit at the table every morning with their coffee and the paper spread across the table.
Every once in a while I’ll find a letter addressed to me sitting on the kitchen counter. It’s from my grandma, and inside will be a newspaper clipping with a little note that usually says something like,
“Read this the other day, and it reminded me of you. Lv, Gma.”
Each time I receive one of those in the mail, I smile to myself thinking, “Why didn’t she just call and tell me?” or “Why didn’t she wait until she saw me next to give it to me?” I keep each clipping anyways because in a way, this is my grandma’s way of retweeting or “regramming” the information she ways to share. Millennials still do that today; we just do it by a tap of a finger sharing articles or pictures left to right on our Instagram stories and Facebook feeds for our family and friends to see.
That fast-paced form of sharing information compliments our generations lifestyle to the point where we don’t know any different. We often don’t have the time to read the Times front to back in our pajamas on Sunday mornings. (I certainly don’t!) Thankfully, technology and social media give us all we need (and more) so we can “check-in” with the world anytime anywhere; that be on the bus, waiting in line at Starbucks, or in my case, while I’m brushing my teeth in the morning!
I can’t remember the last time I read a newspaper cover to cover, but I still consider myself to be more up-to-date on current events than most of my relatives. I get my daily dose of the wide world scrolling through Instagram feeds, clicking through the Daily Mail app on Snapchat, and reading all about the latest and greatest trends via Twitter. With all the hustle and bustle of everyday life, I still manage to snap a pic of the trees on my walk through campus and post it on my 24-hour Instagram story. Although I love calling my friends on the phone, Instagram and Snapchat stories are the next-best-thing, to make me feel like I’m still a part of their life, even though I’m miles and miles away.
A bit embarrassingly, one of the first things I do every morning is check Instagram. I could and have spent hours just scrolling through my feed, a well organized collection of pictures, videos, and people tailored to my interests. Every once in a while something will catch my eye; I’ll click on it, watch it, and maybe share it with a friend, all done in a matter of seconds. I can even save things to a folder that is “for my eyes only,” but the second I refresh the page —- it’s gone, irrelevant, almost as if it didn’t matter in the first place. But it does. Instagram has become a space where we can keep up with millions of users as they “gram” their daily adventures and discoveries for the rest of the world to see.
Snapchat seems to be candy to the millennial sweet tooth, in that it is fast, easy, and just like in its name, snappy. This is where you get information at the tap of a finger. Snapchat’s discover page allows you to subscribe to people’s profiles so you can see what they are sharing every day. News and media outlets like Daily Mail, E News Rundowns, Cosmopolitan, and The Telegraph, for example, provide Snapchat users with news stories no more than 10 seconds long of the latest and seemingly most important events in the media. If you see something or hear something you like, swipe up and you can read the full story. But be careful, because depending on the source, the information you receive may not be the most useful, but it’s almost unavoidable. For example, this morning I was clicking through the Vulture Magazine story and I can now tell you who is the “Hottest TV Couple Ever.” Did I need to know that? Probably not. Like I said, sometimes it’s mindless news, but the beauty of the app is being able to click to the next story in the blink of an eye.
Twitter is the Chatty Cathy of apps. In just 140 characters we can say anything we want to the world. Some posts are innocent like, “I love tacos.” Others use the platform without regard, like the President of the United States, who outs other world leaders, news outlets, and even whole continents. There may be a character limit, but there is certainly no limit to the number of characters who will go to great lengths to get the attention of their favorite celebrity, share a thought or opinion, or blatantly attack the world with the click of a button. Although I don’t have a Twitter account, I think Twitter is a great outlet for users to say what’s on their minds, and share important information with the world. For example, it’s voting season, and Twitter launched their #BeAVoter campaign with the hopes of emphasizing the importance of the informed participation of its users in the upcoming elections. Trends like these keep users accountable of knowing what’s important and relevant at any given time.
Social media has its flaws, like humans do. This little gadget in my hands is a window opening my eyes to the entire world, but in a lot of ways it’s just a mirror reflecting me, myself, and I. Social media does a great job of spreading the news, but it also creates news, and although in small doses it’s okay, we must be careful to not become shackled to it’s every word. Does this mean that we should all sit down with our moms on Sunday and read the newspaper to find out what is happening of real value in the world? Certainly not. It just means that we have to hold ourselves accountable to being conscious consumers.