Blog #10

Social media is something I used to be very into, I was constantly trying to get more friends/followers on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, you name it I was hooked. I put way too much stock into it, and I believed these nameless "followers" were the key to happiness, and that they actually cared about my life. It was a conversation in middle and high school, we would all compare followers and likes, and act like it actually meant something if we had more than our friends, or enemies. As I've gotten older I've deleted the majority of my social media, and the pages I still do have are private and can only be seen by people I choose to let "follow" me. Social media definitely has it's positives, but I believe some of those positives were created by negatives. Looking at it from a technological determinist perspective social media is undoubtedly a "get on the train or get off the tracks" phenomenon. The reason my grandparents and the majority of my friends parents and grandparents got social media such as Facebook, was to keep up with their kids/grandkids, since regular calls became a thing of the past. Yes it's great that our grandparents can keep up with our lives now, but what about those that never got social media? They are far more likely to be neglected from their grandkids/kids lives all because they simply can't keep up with the latest technology. I think my transformation from being a social media addict can simply be chalked up to growing maturity, people that strive to be social media famous, while they may eventually get there, waste so much time trying to get people behind a screen to approve them and tell them how great they are rather than actually getting out and enjoying life. Social media is also a huge factor in relationships deteriorating. Girls and guys see these unrealistic hollywood-esque "relationship goals" that are simply unattainable, and become upset when the relationship isn't how it is depicted in a picture on Instagram. People also work very hard to present a version of themselves on social media that simply doesn't exist, causing stress and anxiety in their lives because they can't be the person they think everyone wants. As far as turing social media into something that is solely positive and improves relationships, I don't have a good answer. I really am not a fan of social media and all that harm that it has and it will cause in people's lives... that's a question to which a solution might not exist. Maybe if their was a way to monitor what was posted, take away the filters, and the staged pictures and just allow people to showcase who they truly are, as well as take away pages that present lifestyles almost no one will ever be able to experience, I think that would make people a lot more introspective and feel freed from trying to fake who they really are.