The fact that our generation has 20 different social media websites and apps constantly being checked and refreshed is (arguably) quite ridiculous. We plan activities with the idea of “being able to get a good pic for Insta” or making sure someone takes a video for our Snapchat story. We open our Twitter apps to scroll through our feed for "a little bit" and before we know it we wasted 20 minutes of our lives. Our little scroll turned into a hard-core “creep fest” on your ex-best-friend's cute brother's new girlfriend (or whatever) from high school.
Our lifestyle has now changed. Everyone is now so consumed with what other people are doing that we barley ever live in our own moments. We obsess over how many likes we get. We are even concerned with how long it takes to get our average number of “likes” / “retweets” based off of our previous posts. Isn't that a little bit concerning itself? We judge people based off of their selfies before we have even talked to them. We judge them on the amount of likes or comments they get. And I know that we all have had, whether we admit to it or not, that awkward moment when you see someone on campus whose profile you just recently looked at and now know a little too much about.
For many years I was one that boycotted the social media movement. I did not get a Facebook until I was a senior in high school. I did not make an Instagram until winter break of my freshman year of college. Only recently I re-opened my Twitter account and started to use it more seriously. Growing up in my small town I already knew more than I wanted to about people, so I always viewed social media as more of a troublemaker than a fun thing to partake in. Sub-tweeting about people and posting pictures to make a boyfriend jealous was not something that interested me. However, I of course gave in when I realized there are more to these social media platforms than just the negatives.
Many people from older generations struggle with understanding the positives. They will complain that social media is the reason our generation is less conversational and has resulted in poor social skills. That might be true in some ways, but in reality they need to realize that we are not going, and are not able to go, back. Social media is an integrate part of our society that it is never going away. From today on, it will continue to transform and become even more prevalent. Our generation is smarter than past for many reasons, and believe it or not, it is because of our technological advances, such as social media.
Children, toddlers and even babies can, and understand how to, use smartphones. We all know a time where we sat in a waiting room on our phones as a two-year-old sat next to us on an iPad. An amazing thing about this is, probably no one taught that child how to use a smart device. Their brains, hungry for development through trial and error, figured it out all on their own. Our parents had to be taught how to use a smart device, but a baby did not. That is just a testament as to how social media will foster an upcoming generation with an empty canvas to start something new, something great.
Social media is a curse to some and a blessing to others. As a Public Relations major I know that social media is an integrate part to my career. It is exciting for our generation to be a part of this media convergence that started maybe somewhere with AOL’s AIM and has now transformed into hashtags and selfies. We are the generation that is the change. Embrace it.
