When we millennials were in elementary school, we were expected to know everything we were taught before taking that Friday test. Not just those weekly exams, but the SAT’s, ACT’s, and other preparation exams we took were said to supposedly measure our intelligence and we believed that the more we knew, the smarter we would be in comparison to others. The school communities expected us to know it all.
Today more than ever, the existence of social media seems to represent those tests. Now, for this specific case, the test-social media comparison isn’t about dealing with better approaches to more effectively educate students, although that’s another very important topic to discuss. This is about putting down those electronic devices and taking a break from the social cyber world. Similar to the standardized tests, different types of social media mediums are, in a way, testing us to see what we know during a particular amount of time. As I see it, a fraction of a short amount of time. We take social media for granted and it seems like using it is becoming a sensitive vice when it comes to keeping our faces attached to a screen all day.
Don’t get me wrong. Social media has made a tremendous, positive impact on our lives, allowing us to almost instantly access information on world events, being able to connect with friends, family, and business professionals from long distances, and most importantly, giving us a voice through user- generated content. And it is important for people who are in charge of business’ social media accounts to be on top of their game and know what other companies are doing and how engaged their own audiences are. However, for our own personal enjoyment, there are more important things in our lives than reloading our Facebook feeds every three seconds. The attention every social media platform is receiving every single second of the day must be ginormous, so much that it hurts and clutters the brain.
What’s more important than not being obsessed with knowing everything that comes from social media, is not ignoring the humanity that beautifully surrounds us. Becoming obsessed with who’s online and what they’re doing hurts those who want to actually spend time with us in person. When I started to become more involved with the habits of social media, my mom brought to my attention that we as a whole tend to lose that personal connection with each other due to always being face-to-face with a screen, instead of being face-to-face with other people. Having a relationship with other humans enhances our relationship with ourselves and helps us to become fully aware of what’s important.
For me personally, I’ve learned that I don’t need to grasp all bits of news and gossip that flows through my social networks, be engulfed in other peoples’ business all the time, and I don’t need to know everything. It’s humanly impossible to know everything, but since we are human, we need human connection. Plus, who wants to be friends with a social know-it-all?
