This is the last picture I posted tonight (2:35 am of today, Monday the 22nd of August, 2016) and posted it in Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter. It’s my pomeranian dog Pimpón whom I just felt like comparing it to Eevee. It’s 2:35am and am still awake folks! Tomorrow I have med school and need to wake up early. But, what’s the point going into bed late if not browsing through the social media? Isn’t it looking for something new or funny? Or something pleasant?
Well, lately I’ve found myself in the moment of posting too many pictures in a senseless way and I asked myself: is it necessary for me to post everything I do or eat? Even my best friend has told me plenty of times: dude, is it necessary for you to do that? You sometimes act as if you were absent, and other times you feel the urge of taking pics at Starbucks, or at anyplace and posting them. Why? One time he said for me not to take a pic of him. I asked for the reason, he just said that he would not be in it just because. I love that dude, why? Because he rocks and also because he gets on my nerves and makes me see things the right way. And social media is one of them.
Whether you are a serious blogger, a self-made journalist to the world, a novice in photography or just love taking pics of your surroundings posting them on Instagram or Twitter, or love retweeting posts of others, love posting your state of humour or what you do in Facebook, or just taking snaps on your Snapchat Story for your friends and new friends from around tge globe…there is something we all users have in common whether we accept it or not: a desire for public recognition and approval (not all the time though).
Yes, that is the inner drive and you cannot hide it. It is deep within us. It may hide very well but all of us know it very well. Even now as I type this post I too feel it, a hope that someone will read it and give it a fave and give me the recognition “deserved.” We write the best way we can, proofreading it and (in my case) reading it aloud to see if it “sounds ok.” Or looking for the best filter in a photograph before it’s submitted to the world.
Now that finally the “elephant inside the living room ” is detected, what are some lights to “turn the warning lights on” of this dependence? There might be more, but will ennumerate just a few:
- You use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Whatsapp, Snapchat, Tumblr or any other social network.
- You use at least one of the above listed regularly.
- You visit your social media at least 5 times a day.
- You use more than one type of app/social media at the same time.
- You sleep very late due to your attachments on social media.
- You feel a bit anxious if your battery is about to die and sincerely it is not because you will be phone-less but app-less.
- You use abbreviations for those social media when talking to othersyour : IG, Fb, SC, etc.
- You spend more time with your online pals than your live friends/family.
- You feel no one understands you. You feel you do not belong to old standards.
- You feel the drive/necessity of posting everything you feel “important” such as what you eat, the gym you go to, the diet plan you follow, the shadows that those trees make at a sunset near the park you took your kids to, the stars invading the sky, applying filters to what you are drinking and post while driving…well pretty much everything. You feel like finally your artistic/modeling/sporty/funny side flourished.
- Your friends tell you all I just listed above and yet you feel a bit angry or uncomprehended.
- You end up having too many posts of things not that important, and yet you cannot see the banality.
I went through this list myself and still am in it. Found myself at #9 and felt a bit or a mixture between anger and questioning. But at least now I identified I have a “problem” and I can so something about it: UNPLUG MYSELF…for a while.
We are in a new generation, new devices, new and sensationalism fills the atmosphere. The new and improved the better. The fast and instant the best…but we live surrounded by the same old world with same people and wonders that will never fully be grasped with the lens of a camera but with the recording of our brain and feelings.
What is the main point? To recognise there is a problem, and tackle it: having a reading time with real books, interaction with real, physical people, going to a gym or to a restaurant with no apps opened…those are just a few examples. Let’s make it happen, let’s be less attached to society and attach more to those who matter…
PS: stay away from Pokèmon Go for a while lol
legardulenotch 