Social media is an inescapable part of everyday life. While walking through campus you see people looking down at their phones. In class people browse through the latest media updates. The ritual continues at the dinner table, in the bath and before bed. As much as we love to think our need to be updated on the who, what, when and where is all under our control, it is starting to seem like more like a compulsion and obsession than a way to kill time. Are we becoming too concerned with not only what people are doing but how we appear on social media?
I have so much music on my phone, that I hardly have room for a ton of random apps. I have a few games, a news source, Blackboard, GMail, a horoscope application and Web MD. As far as social media goes, I usually keep it down to the basics like Facebook and Twitter. Last year, I downloaded Instagram because most of my friends had it. That seemed like more than enough. Later in the year, Snapchat became the new thing and I felt like I should get it because all of my friends had it. The next thing I know, a creepy app called Tinder (a mix of match.com and Facebook) is what everyone is talking about. Then there was LuLu, an all female app that wasn’t much different than a “burn book” from Mean Girls, except it was for girls to comment on and rate guys. Next came Vine. It is basically Instagram but with videos and in truth, Facebook is like Vine, Instagram and Twitter in one. Why do we need so many outlets for social media? There are three sides to the answers as to why social media is quickly taking over our lives.
The first reason is that we care way too much about what other people are doing. Even in college, social media takes us back to high school. You hear something nasty about a girl? Well, you look her up on Facebook and Twitter and see if her photos or tweets had already established her “slutty” reputation or hinted that she was crazy. This is what I am going to call the “Amanda Bynes Phenomenon.” We hear someone is being crazy, wild or reckless and we all flock to their social media accounts to see if they outwardly express these qualities. It is exactly what we did to poor Amanda. It doesn’t matter if it is a celebrity, a girl in your own sorority or a girl from high school; we all look to social media to dig up “dirt” on people who are in the subject of gossip.
Another reason we are turning to social media so much is because it is easy to feel “out of the loop” without it. All of your friends have Snapchat and you don’t want to be the only one not getting obnoxious “selfies.” Everyone is talking about Vine and you are dying to know why a video of a pony dancing to Vanessa Carlton is so hilarious. The guy you are hooking up with is on LuLu and you really want to see what other girls have said, despite how juvenile it feels. When the majority of our peers have it, we feel the need to get it and before we know it, we have 10+ social media accounts to manage.
It isn’t always other people’s lives we are so obsessed with on social media. That’s the point that brings me to the third reason social media is engulfing our lives: We are obsessed with how we look on social media. As much as you can sit there and deny this fact, it is the truth and I didn’t believe it myself until the other day. I was with a friend of mine and she started going through my old Facebook pictures. I am talking about stuff from eighth grade when I cut my own bangs and took pictures of myself in a mirror. It was some pretty embarrassing stuff. I realized then that it would probably be a good idea to start cleaning out old photos. Later that week, I got online and began going through all my albums. I deleted the outright obnoxious and embarrassing ones. I couldn’t have people trolling the web, looking at these awful pictures, and laughing at me forever. As I opened an album from ninth grade, I realized that I honestly didn’t want to delete it. This wasn’t who I was anymore, but it certainly was who I used to be and as far as I was concerned, I didn’t want to completely forget it. Now, I did take a few down that involved frosted highlights and a Juicy sweat suit but that’s understandable. The “emo” selfies had to go too. As for the funny ones and silly ones, I left them. I realized that we care way too much about what other people see. All of my tagged photos were ones from nights out with the girls or professionally done sessions where I looked my best. I had so many great pictures that I wanted to share where I looked a little rough, and I wasn’t going to hide them away because someone would see me without makeup.
So why do we do this? Why do we tailor our lives to look our best to everyone when our friends, family and ourselves really know that isn’t our life 24/7? When people meet me in class without makeup and I’m in shorts and a t-shirt, they’re going to realize what kind of person I actually am. We feel the need, be it through Facebook or Twitter, to tailor our lives to look as squeaky clean and great as everyone else’s. Girls post bible verses for the hell of it. During recruitment, when we are all tired and frustrated and needed space from our sorority sisters, we tweet about how we wish it was like that all the time and how perfect it is. It is incredibly superficial. To a degree, we should care about our appearance on social media. When it comes to keeping it relatively clean and respectable, that is important for future employment opportunities. However, doing certain things or posting certain things to give off a particular impression is slightly overkill, increasingly popular and incredibly pathetic.
When the idea to write about social media was presented to me, I wondered if this topic really mattered or if it would really be all that relatable. There is no doubt in my mind that it is. Social media is not a bad thing and that is not what I mean to imply. I love dancing pony videos on Vine and “creeping” on Instagram as much as the next girl, but I think it should all be done with caution. It is so easy to get too caught up in other people’s lives and business. It is so easy to let it rule our impressions of people and creep into every spare moment we have. We need to remember that in fact, there is a world outside of social media and that there is much more to a person that what is on our newsfeed. We need to also remember that it shouldn’t rule the way we present ourselves. When you have to post certain things to intentionally make yourself appear a certain way, you probably need a break from the chaos. Also, keep in mind that realistically people probably aren’t stalking you on social media sites anyway (unless you have done something unspeakable that everyone is gossiping about) and even then, how much does it really matter at that point?
I will still check my email and Twitter between classes. I will update my photos on Facebook and Instagram as needed. I’ve definitely narrowed down my social media apps to just the necessities. I can’t update eight different accounts every time I have something to share. I also don’t care about what other people are doing enough to follow people on all of those different accounts. Enjoy your social media, but remember: it isn’t all that there is to a person, it isn’t all there is to us, it shouldn’t take over our lives and it probably wouldn’t hurt to take a break from time to time. Take a chance to evaluate your motives for “creeping” on all of these outlets, and then find time to give yourself a break. It never hurts to take a break, take a breath and unplug for a little while.
photo source: corporate-eye.com