Our apps, our followers and one of our closest friends nowadays is our friend social media.
The question is: Has social media taken the meaning out of being “social” in society?
Think about it. When was the last time you went somewhere without checking in on Facebook, posting a picture with a filter on Instagram or posting a video to your story on Snapchat? Why are we so obsessed with constantly letting our followers or “friends” know what we’re up to or what food we’re eating? The answer could be within the generation of millennials.
Millennials were brought up during the age of the internet and the rise of iPhones and apps. However, did the idea of posting your life on the internet come with those tech booms as well? There could be many different scenarios for how technology made it this far, but now it is a way of life, and when things become a way of life, things can go wrong.
This brings me to my next question: Is social media actually making us more social? More and more millennials today are feeling either left out, forgotten or alone when people post. These adjectives also fit the description of FOMO, which according to urban dictionary is the acronym “fear of missing out.” This fear of missing out is why people tend to post so much because they don’t want to seem irrelevant in the world of social media. Not only is social media changing how people act on the internet, but also how they act with their friends as well. People now get offended if you posted pictures of an event and you didn’t invite them, or people have to take a million pictures until you can find the perfect one to post to social media. Some people would argue that they are just trying to capture the moment, but are they?
I remember when capturing the moment was taking a snapshot with a Kodak disposable camera and then seeing what the pictures looked like a week later; capturing the moment was when the memories were the only resource to look back on your life. Maybe it’s time to do a little less posting and a little more living. Let’s let go of “pics or it didn’t happen,” and let’s hold on to it did happen. Let’s remember.
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