Tuesday: Day 1

I am proud to say that I never grew up as an IPad kid and got to enjoy playing in the yard with my cousins and friends after school. I never really became actively involved in social media until about middle school when Facebook became a big thing and even then I only really limited my virtual interactions to Skype to chat with friends while we played online video games. Once the development of other platforms such as Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok came around, I definitely saw an increase of my free time invested into reading the latest gossip and actively scrolling through posts of friends, family and influencers. I have never done a social media “blackout” before but the closest experience I have had to it is just simply on days that I can only invest the free time into catching up on sleep. Following this social media cleanse, I wonder if I will have a different outlook in life such as less negativity or if I will find no effect on my daily life at all.

    I can sincerely state that I do not spend as much time contemplating my looks nevertheless editing them before posting on social media especially since it is rare enough for me to be on it due to my work and school schedule. However, I openly admit to taking multiple photos and only posting the ones that I like of myself and whomever else is in that photo with me. Despite this, I strongly believe that social media does not accurately represent who I really am and definitely falls short of depicting an idealized version of how I would like to be seen as well. A photo I recently posted was of myself in front of a wall of the Blue Bell ice cream factory. My arms were raised in the air, my legs were perfectly positioned to be more flattering to hide the wideness of my thighs and my smile that was not as crooked as the other photos that I had taken. People do not realize that when I had posted it that the photo was of months ago before work began to bulldoze through my social life or that it took relentless takes to find the not so bad one of the bunch. Several even in the comments claim they would like to go to quirky nice places like I have been but fail to realize how long ago these photos were taken and how my life is so very different now. 

    I personally think that being on social media has introduced a jealousy-like outlook upon others that I view from influencer’s pages or even friends and family. I don’t necessarily hold hatred or animosity towards it but a better comprehension would be a feeling of desire for things that others may have and a resulting jealousy that forms due to this lack of what they have but I don’t. In a societal sense, I definitely see a large gap between those who may have grown up playing outside and socially interacting with others in comparison to those who were raised as what we may consider “IPad babies”. A specific example would be between my younger brother and I. Though raised in the same household, I always opted to be out and about with my peers or family. Whenever technology was really introduced into my life (I’d say about 12 y/o), I could still balance the person-person interaction along with virtual while maintaining who I thought I was. In comparison, my brother, as soon as he could crawl, was presented with an IPad at his fingertips. He did not properly speak until he was 4 y/o and to this day struggles with social cues that I have always thought were supposed to be common sense. He shys away from social interaction and specifically prefers to communicate with friends virtually via the gaming platform Discord. He struggles with reading the room and empathizing with what others may feel when speaking face to face with others as well.