We’ve all heard the dichotomy about how social media is supposed to connect human beings, but often has the opposite effect: driving people apart by decreasing face-to-face interactions. Half of the time teenagers spend together is spent on their iPhones, the intimacy of a moment is stolen by a selfie stick in your face, and at the first sight of boredom, heads drop immediately to scroll through Twitter. That being said, you’re reading this piece, which would be much less likely if it hadn’t been shared through social media. So like everything in life, there are pros and cons. While I have your attention, I’d like to discuss one of the cons of social media that I believe can be detrimental to people, especially in times of change or vulnerability.
My first semester at Whitman College was a roller-coaster ride. Some days I felt like I completely fit in, I was learning more than I had my whole life, and I had a great group of friends. Other days I felt overwhelmed with the academic expectations, I had only surface-level relationships with my friends, and I was missing the unconditional support I had from my family when I lived at home. I can only assume other students can relate to these ever-changing feelings. So naturally, I would post on social media when the spurts of happiness would occur, but wouldn’t post anything related to my more somber moods. The joy that was displayed in my posts and pictures was not how I was feeling all of the time.
This is the issue with social media: people want to share the best aspects of their life with the rest of the world, which can create a false representation of what is really happening. During the times I was struggling through my first year, I would check Instagram and Facebook and feel discouraged. It’s much more glamorous to share the positive parts of one’s life, so when I would look at these social media sites, I was overwhelmed by the “I love my new home!”s and “couldn’t be happier!”s. It made me ask myself, am I supposed to be happier than I am now? Should I be having more fun? My new environment and my lack of stability in my life made me more vulnerable to feeling discouraged by this exposure to others’ false happiness. In a way, social media has become a contest of who can seem the happiest. Is it part of human nature to want to share your joyous experiences with others, or has social media taken away our ability to savor a beautiful moment by ourselves? I am not discouraging people from sharing their great experiences in life, but I have to ask within this day-and-age of constant sharing: does our society place so much emphasis on being happy that people are ashamed to show others the darker aspects of their life?
When I went home for breaks, my family friends or acquaintances would say, “Well, from what I’ve seen from Facebook, looks like you’re having a lot of fun!” This made me realize that I also am portraying my life in a way that just shows the easy times, and leaves out the difficult ones. Am I making others feel the way that I felt when I looked at their posts and pictures? Clearly there are numerous questions that arise from the pitfalls of social media.
The main point I am trying to get across in this article is that even though it’s easy to guess what someone’s life is like through social media, many things are left out in a picture or a Facebook post. So to anyone starting a new chapter in your life where you haven’t settled into your new environment yet: not all of the people on social media have perfect lives (as their posts might suggest) and many of them are probably struggling with this weird thing we call life, just like you are.
