After spending three weeks in a foreign country with very limited access to any kind of WiFi, I’ve come to the conclusion that flirting with the ability to access social media is one of the most frustrating experiences to encounter. The whole time I was away I tried convincing myself that I shouldn’t have a problem with disconnecting from the rest of the world. I felt as though I should easily be able to live in the moment without having to share it with anyone that was 5400 miles away from me, but disconnecting isn’t as simple as it seems when the internet is waiting for you, tempting you. I say it was waiting because while I was out of the country it’s not that I had no way of accessing WiFi, it’s just that the process of obtaining it was cumbersome and would inconvenience the others I was with, making me feel guilty for wanting it. However, there was also an irresistible urge to obtain it.
Only when we went downtown or to a restaurant, would I begin to have a chance to get on my phone. If I ended up in a place that had WiFi I could check Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Beme, and my Email, but even then I wouldn’t have access for more than an hour because soon enough we would be done eating and we would move on to the next activity of the day. That was it, for the whole day, one measly hour of internet that was often interrupted by conversations, eating, and on top of everything the WiFi was often very slow. Granted, an hour of internet access, even if it is slow, is more than enough time to post on Facebook, share pictures of your city tour on Instagram, #LiveTweet your lunch on Twitter, Snap the old charm of a small European city to your Snapchat story to make others jealous, honestly record your experiences on Beme, and take care of business on your email; however, social media had grabbed ahold of my attention span so well that being unable to access these outlets at multiple times throughout the day became overwhelmingly frustrating.
If I wasn’t going to have access to the internet for the entire time I was gone, I don’t think I would have felt the need to look at my phone - it would have just been a useless tool that would become important once I returned to the US - but having the temptation of internet access as a part of my daily routine became extremely frustrating, and for the first week abroad, every time I did have access I felt like I was on some kind of internet high. It was as though the occasion was so rare and wondrous that I had to take ahold of it right then and there, for everything that it was, and if I didn’t do just that then I would have missed out on something great.
Isn’t that backwards though? Shouldn’t I have felt like I was missing something because I wasn’t fully engaged in the moment that I was actually living, instead of being enthralled with letting other people know a part of my day? Everything I’ve ever heard from my parents generation is that kids my age are too concerned with making sure other people know how great our lives are, when we should really be concerned with actually making our lives great, and making sure we are fully present for those great moments. I thought about this after the first week of my stay in Europe, and from there I made a concerted effort to stay off my phone as much as possible; it’s not like the world was actually going to leave me behind if I was unable to check my phone or share everything I was doing with others, even if it felt that way at times. But after realizing this, I couldn’t help but wonder what my relationship with social media and the internet was.
Assuming that I’m at least somewhat like the majority of people my age and the majority of the millennial generation, I have to ask: What’s our relationship with Social Media and the Internet? Does it really have such a strangle hold on our lives that being without it in it’s entirety for a few weeks feels overwhelmingly frustrating? If it didn’t, I doubt that having limited access would have felt so strange and uncomfortable. Some people in my generation may say that being disconnected from the world is extremely liberating, and that may be the case, however I bet those people are only disconnected for a very short amount of time (perhaps a day or two, or at most a week) and chances are that they actively chose to have a period of disconnected freedom, or at least expected to be completely away from the world. If not, they seem to be the exception in my generation. For the rest of us, it would appear that we have a very close relationship with social media, a close and mutually enjoyed relationship. So close and enjoyable, that we may be more concerned with capturing picturesque scenes to share either as they’re happening, or later if we must, than we are with actually embracing the moments we’re living in.
I’m not saying that we should ditch our phones and social media in favor of embracing every moment we live in without wanting to share it with people later. I’m not saying that at all. I love using my phone and sharing things on the variety of social media platforms available to us. Being able to do that often brings me joy, along with many others I’m sure. I’m simply trying to understand to what extent we should let social media influence our lives. I think we should all continue to post articles or milestones on Facebook, share an evening out with our friends on Instagram, and Snapchat funny pictures and videos to our friends-- these things often bring people closer together than they were before. With that said, I think we should make sure that we’re not considering how events will look on these platforms while we’re actually living them. Just enjoy the moment, and if you want a group picture because it’ll be fun to keep for memory's sake, and also happens to look great on Instagram too, that’s fantastic! Just try not to think about those things when you’re actually out with your friends. Take in your surroundings. A picture is nice, and likes on your picture can be even nicer, but a precious memory will always stand above all of that as time moves on.
