The other day, a good friend called me up to talk about something he had posted on Facebook. He had recently gotten a job with a top aerospace engineering company and had posted a status about it. However, he was worried that it would come across as showing off. I told him it was no big deal, and that because other people did it all the time, there was nothing to worry about. But it got me thinking about how much our culture has changed as a result of Facebook and other social media platforms. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest, among others, are all great outlets of creativity and expression that allow millions of people to come together over the Internet to connect and share information. But who is it really for? And how good of a job does it do making connections and keeping us connected?
My guess is that for the average person, it doesn’t do as good of a job as we would like to think. In fact, I’d be willing to bet both of my bachelor’s degrees that a typical user with 700+ friends communicates with only 10% of those friends at most on a regular basis. If you can manage more than that, then you deserve an award! Just thinking about how many people we are "friends" with in our everyday lives and how many of them we actually hang out with paints a clearer picture. And although social media can be a great tool to reconnect with long lost friends, there simply isn’t enough time to talk to them all.
Social media has helped create a culture in which we try to focus the spotlight on ourselves instead of on those around us. After all, it's not a team sport. Here is where that old adage "There is no 'I' in team" goes out the window. In the world of social media, it’s all about the "I," and when your success is measured by the approval of others, it can seem like a competition. Look whose picture got the most likes! Who has more followers on Twitter? How many subscribers do I have on my YouTube channel? How many shares is this Odyssey article going to get? It’s only natural to care about what others think and to want to look good in front of others. So when your personal image is on the line, what you post becomes even more important.
When we post about getting the dream job, the internship, or even good grades, who is it really for? Are we doing it because it makes us feel better about ourselves, because it boosts our self-esteem, or is it because everyone else really needs to know? Chances are, while most of our friends and followers (or whatever) will be happy for us, it’s only our close friends that will care. And you don’t have to announce anything through social media to tell them the good news. I can remember back to when I was in middle school and grades would come out at the end of the semester. I never told my friends what I got unless they asked me. Even when we share links online, is it because we think someone else will like it or is it because we find it interesting? What we share says a lot about who we are. It speaks to our likes and dislikes. It’s all part of our online persona. Our culture has come a long way since before the days of social media. And it’s not necessarily headed in a bad direction (like many old people would have us believe). It’s just headed in a different one.
