It seems ridiculous to believe that one day people will look to social media to validate their every move, opinion, and relationship, but that is becoming the world we live in. Have you ever noticed whenever you are attending an event you feel the need to either post it to SnapChat, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram? "Why is that?" you might ask yourself. You're just decorating a virtual wall with pictures or writing down your candid thoughts in a virtual dairy. Why would that become so important? Or better yet, why would self-validation become reliant on social media's approval?

Before Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram became so widespread there was more communication without computers, tablets, or iPhones/Androids. There were online chatting websites, but they were not so mainstream. As a result, self-validation was mainly reliant on human interactions. For example, back in the late '90s and early '00s people took pictures purely to remember an event. Thus, meaning the event mattered to all involved, and the picture was to emphasize that already secure and established thought. Nowadays, people take pictures to post for the world online to secure the idea that an event matters at all. The simple breakdown of the idea is that "if I don't post it then it didn't happen or matter."

The reason social media has the ability to take such prominence in one's need for self-validation is the response time and the mass. Whenever I post a "snap" or "status" I get instant feedback and high a volume of people responding. The sensation is almost like being a celebrity, and in cultures where celebrities are people everyone wants to be, the feeling can be very satisfying.

Placing one's self-validation in the viral hands of social media may not be the consensus of every person on earth, but, as the older generation dies out, the new generation takes over, becoming the new consensus. To clarify, my younger cousin is so consumed by Facebook that when we were on a camping trip in the woods she was updating her status and looking for WiFi. She eventually warmed up to being disconnected from social media and found the joy in nature. However, that process took a while to happen because people in her generation are so reliant on social media for validation of self. Furthermore, following that logic the younger generation is obsessed with social media and eventually without forming a proper balance, social media maybe the only form of validation that matters.