Do we plan our lives on social media
as much as we plan our day to day plan? After discussing in class our obsession
with social media and constantly updating it, I’d say so. We display ourselves
as a different person on Facebook, Twitter and any other media. There are those
who have different profiles for different groups of people—family,
professionals, friends and maybe those who they don’t even know. This hinders our real relationships outside
of social media. (This goes back to the whole Catfish idea and not displaying
ourselves as who we are). Or does it?
If we’re
constantly posting picture of what we are doing, does it help our relationships
outside of social media? People post constant updates, facebook statuses and
pictures to let the world know what they are doing. We plan to take a picture
and then post it up as soon as it’s taken so that the world knows what we are
doing. I even have certain friends who will plan to post a certain status or
tweet at a certain time to create some sort of “message.” Do we go out of our
way to do something that we can tweet about it, or do we really tweet in the
moment? This goes with pictures. Are we really having fun, or do we have to
post a picture, get “likes” and social media attention to have fun? I’m guilty of posting pictures as soon as I
take them, but the more and more I think about planning life around social
media, it makes me want to reject it.
People
would be more interesting if they didn’t post on social media all the time. It
would make people a little mysterious. Instead of tweeting everyone five
minutes, posting one creative tweet or something that actually means something
would make life a lot better. Sometimes people feel the need to update social media. They NEED to change their picture. The
world just needs to know what food they are eating or hear a rant about their
boyfriend/girlfriend/whatever friend.
What I’m
saying is, we plan our media, we plan what we want people to think of us, and
it’s constantly changing. The only way to make this addiction useful is to post
quality things. Because you can only be so famous on the internet for long.
You say "we" and in class everyone acts as if all social media users lie or portray a different person than who they are. For me, that is not the case. I am not consumed in social media. I do not represent myself any differently online than I do in person. I do not have more than one account and my Twitter is not private. I am not worried about not looking professional because I do not share my every thought with the world through tweets and statuses. There are people that do that, but for the most part I have found that myself and my friends are too busy with our actual lives. When I sit in our class and listen to everyone who raises their hand, I think social media is made to sound much more consuming and negative than it is. It's up to the person to decide how much they let it control their life.
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