SOCIAL MEDIA
The Anti-Social World of Social Media Laura Mazzitelli @lmmazzitelli
The online world: a virtual place where most millenials reside daily. Many of us know it all too well. We wake up, we check our phone. We refresh, we scroll. Then soon enough, we do it all over again. Bored at 2pm? Why not check Instagram? Stuck in a class that’s boring you? Time to check your messages. Eating food from a local café? Take a Snapchat and send it to everyone, because if you didn’t snap it, it didn’t happen, right? If we don’t do it, we’ve done it. And if we haven’t done it, we know someone who has. This is the online world we live in, and as time passes and new apps are invented, updated and popularised, the online world filters down to become our reality. According to We Are Social and Hootsuite’s latest collection of Global Digital 2019 reports, one million new users are joining the internet every day, and a total of 3.5 billion people now engage with at least one online social media platform. With this continual increase in social media use, it is easy to withdraw ourselves from the present and delve into the apps on our phones. We now text rather than call, post online instead of sharing moments in person, and yes, some spend that extra fifteen minutes in the morning stressing over a photo-worthy outfit in case their friend whips out their phone to post and tag you in their story. Perhaps you have been in a situation where 28
you are mid conversation with your friend, and as you are about to take a bite of your lunch, they cry: ‘STOP! PHOTO!’. You, hungry and confused, must put down your knife and fork so your food remains in its original, pristine condition. They then take an Instagram boomerang, where you, caught off guard, tilt your head to the side in an attempt to strike a somewhat natural and ‘unplanned’ pose, and, if you both agree it has good lighting, they upload it to their social media account to show their 700 followers what they ate for lunch, and who they were with. These are the often unspoken behaviours of many social media users, and such behaviour can take us away from the actual moment of sharing a meal, to be replaced with a subconscious awareness of how many people will view it. It sounds kind of silly when we think of it like this doesn’t it? But we often don’t. Most of all, we don’t tend to talk about how superficial and meaningless it may be when our primary purpose for sharing things is to prove our self-worth. Sure, there are times when we want to share amazing experiences, locations, quotes and inspiring stories with our friends and peers, and that is a great benefit of social media sharing. But, there is a fine line between these special moments and messages, and seeking social validation by comparing ourselves to others. What we can also sometimes fail to see is that people’s lives may not be as glamorous as they seem online, and behind the pixels may lie a sense of deep insecurity and craving for approval.
