Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, video games, YouTube, texting, TV…they’re all amazing tools of communication. They have allowed people to communicate with their friends and families around the world, they have informed us about the events around the globe, they have spread awareness of important issues. Yet they are silently destroying us. We are more connected than we have ever been in all history and yet we are simultaneously the most silent, disconnected generation in all history. We have turned something positive into something negative, turned a tool intended to help people to a tool of destruction. Our phones flood with pictures and videos every day, yet we have turned the human being into nothing but a 2D image, something seen on a screen and not our own eyes.
We hear about alcoholism and drug addictions but there is another addiction forming: technology. 50 percent of people at parties are glued to their phones. Talking on the subway has become non-existent. Going out to dinner with friends includes checking your phone every 10 minutes. Being unable to let go of your phone, to put down a gadget has become impossible. And I have recently realized I have been sucked into this culture. And what are we looking at? Videos of puppies playing? Pictures of people eating cake? How is that ever supposed to improve our lives? How is that at all useful? How will that help the world? Reading has also decreased, people choosing to watch videos on YouTube rather than picking up a novel and trying to learn more about the world and history by reading beautifully written stories. I’ve met many people who have never read books like "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen, "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott, or "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck, all of which are classics and some of the most important, insightful pieces of literature in the world. Of course it is not a requirement that a person loves reading, yet turning away from books simply to watch videos shared on Facebook is unhealthy.
The lack of confidence and lowering of self-esteem has also become more intense, more common than any other point in history. People never post pictures of their behind the scenes; they post pictures of their highlights. Whether it’s a girl in a perfect dress at prom or a guy holding up a trophy after winning a championship game, what we have to compare to ourselves is the airbrushed, enhanced versions of people’s lives. Eating disorders have become common due to the constant stream of seemingly skinny girls. Self-esteem has been lowered because we look at girls with perfect skin and compare our complexion to theirs…when oftentimes it takes makeup and Instagram filters to achieve the porcelain skin girls boast. Because we are forced to look at people’s highlight reels and not their behind the scenes, we compare our difficult moments to people’s “perfect” moments…and it makes us feel like wrecks.
The number of likes on Instagram has also become a measure of how we define our self-worth. Apps have been created that boast the idea that they will give you more followers, the users of the apps praising the company for their ability to make their customers feel more popular simply because of a number that pops up under a photo. We believe happiness comes from approval, that if someone else has more Instagram likes than you do they are somehow more special. Self-worth is now based on superficial means, making us more superficial in turn. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t sucked into this. A lot of people I know get upwards of 200 likes on Instagram, whereas I usually get about 35 to 40. I have friends, I have really loving and caring sorority sisters and yet I get a lot less likes than some other people I know. I have no clue why this is the way it is, but it used to make me feel less special, less important. Yet I suddenly realized how superficial I was being; I was focusing simply on how many times people double-tapped on my picture, not how people acted around me when I was with them.
Next time you open up Snapchat ask yourself, how will this help my life? How will watching redundant videos improve the world? If I devoted my time to volunteer work in replacement for the hours spent on social media, how much could I help the world? Imagine how much we could change the world if we spent as much time looking at our phones as we did doing volunteer work! The average person can spend hours on their phones, yet what if we devoted those hours to helping out the Red Cross or assisting the elderly at a nursing home? We could change the world.
