Blog post 1 (9/5)

­­In this day and age, media is the main lens through which we see the world. It shapes our views of news, music, hobbies, even our own friends. Everything. However most of us are, to some extent, also opening a window into our own lives through our personal social media accounts, which can be positive at times, while being very negative at other times. Each post, each photo, each video, etc. is going to be seen by our friends or followers and going to be interpreted based on what they know of us and the little of ourselves we are able to project to the world online.

Personally, I consume more media than I create. My personal posts are sporadic and infrequent; I have to convince myself that its worth doing and it’s a long mental process. When I do post on social media (photos of myself, what I’m doing, etc.) I realize I do try hard to make it seem like I’m just as cool as everyone else, or that I’m doing great things in life, etc. In that sense, I guess I am pressured to measure myself against media standards, and that’s all anyone would see of me online. 

I prefer focusing on informative media outlets involving factual articles, forums, blogs, etc. like Quora, Google news, reddit, and other such sites more than social media like Instagram and Facebook. From time to time, I go through bouts where I am glued to social media and over time it just makes things feel depressing because either you’re comparing yourself to the endless amounts of fun and perfection you see among your peers or celebrities, or you see saddening stories of things going on in politics or other countries. At work, someone mentions something devastating they read on social media and everyone chimes in that they saw it too. We're all connected, which is nice, but it can take a toll on our mental health over time. 

Social media gets us stuck in an instant gratification mindset, and it sets harsh standards on us. When we don’t get enough likes or the right reactions it hurts. We experience "FOMO" (Fear of Missing Out) when we have to step away from social media to do anything in the real world. This is a mindset we should strive to move away from. What we need is a social media detox. We need to step away from social media and realize there is more to the world than that. Live events, face-to-face conversations, and even TV and film are often less hurtful forms of media. Personally, this is something I strive to be able to do soon, but am not sure if I am ready for it yet. It would be nice to erase all the hopes and expectations that come from social media use from my mind and see how that changes my outlook on life.

Graphic from christinawashere.com blog