In this day in age, everybody knows everything about everybody else. Social media is an outlet with which people prioritize showing everyone how much fun they're having over actually having a good time. However, unfortunately it's a part of the society we live in and frankly no matter what I say in this article, this fact will remain standing. Don't get me wrong, many people keep a healthy balance and utilize social networks as a way to share their lives with their peers without it affecting their outlook on life. There are instances that are important in people's lives that should be recorded. Sometimes a there's a hilarious, unique event that deserves to be thrown up on the gram. However, the underlying competition that drives people to appear to be having more fun or the enhancing of photos to make people look like someone else entirely, I find to be pathetic.
Some people while reading this will react by thinking, “If you feel this way just unfollow me." However, I honestly think there's a larger issue at hand. The Greek world we live in is becoming more and more superficial and people have become more and more obsessed with perfecting an image that is considered ideal by the public. It's almost as if the majority of people aren't able to live their lives without worrying about an underlying widespread view of them being present in the public eye. As nice as technology is, it's almost as if we have too much access to each other's lives. The term FOMO or fear of missing out wasn't near as big of an issue or an issue at all in the decades preceding this one because their weren't 47 Instagrams of the party you had to miss because you had an exam the next day.
Personally, I believe this goes even deeper to why our generation has the tendency to gossip so much. Not sure if I'm in a unique situation, but go ahead and take notice to the amount of smack talk you hear about people behind their backs in a 24 hour period; it's frankly astounding. I think the world of social media has put people of our age group into a widespread competition to be what is viewed by their peers as “better" than others, a social hierarchy if you will. People putting others down to boost their own self-esteem. It's a sad reality that I myself can do nothing about but wish we as a community start to deemphasize the importance of competition to be popular which is so prevalent in the Greek community. I'm not going to suggest that people stop using networks such as Instagram or Twitter because I think they can be used properly and it'd frankly be hypocritical of me to say that, because I have social media accounts too. Yet having a different view on how these social networks are used will go a long way in enhancing the overall happiness of some people, especially those who are in college or high school. We need to move toward concentrating on being happy in our own shoes versus comparing themselves to others. But like I said, when you get right down to it, people are going to post whatever they want. To each their own, I guess.
