Social Media: The Voice of a Minority

I deleted social media back in October for around 5 months, got it back, and now after 2(ish) months I'm just over it. I don't need to see what everyone is doing. Even when I got social media back I didn't really use it again fully. I think our society, our generation, is too attached to instant information and documenting. We just sit behind our computer and phone screens and document our lives, and in the process compare it to everyone else. It keeps us from being happy, truly happy. The happiness you can only experience in the moment, that touches your core and you can’t truly document because as suddenly as it comes, it leaves. And no 140 character tweet and perfectly filtered picture can embody true happiness.

When all we perpetually see on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are happy smiling faces, people seemingly having an insane amount of fun, we are left feeling mediocre. None of what I am saying is new knowledge, people have been saying these things and doing studies on them for years. It just fully resonated with me today. I'm 18 years old finishing up my freshman year at college and I can't say I am anymore happy after this school year than I was in high school. I would actually say I’m just more lost. Yet while I battle with all my existential angst, I am showing a different side on the internet.

In high school everyone is in the same building and taking about the same classes. We may participate in different sports and activities and get different grades that change the experience, and opportunities we have, but we are more or less on the same level. Now enters college. We aren't forced to walk the same crammed halls, following the same path. We are separated. And the world really does become our oasis. When watching your peers delve into different arenas and have seemingly more varied, and just simply fun experiences, all you can do is compare. Left with a feeling that you aren’t doing enough, that your life and experience post high school education just doesn’t stack up.

When you are so hung up on social media all you are doing is comparing your collegiate experience (hell your life in general) the so called "best years of your life" to others and seeing if it stacks up. People might not say it and consciously see it, but it all becomes a contest. Beyond just sharing your life and letting people know what going on, you’re trying to prove how fun, interesting, and cool your life is. Once you’ve really clued in to viewing social media in this way it just isn't all that fun or important. It’s supposed to be fun, but for me it ends up just feeling like work.

Twitter, and Instagram (more so than Facebook) have just become branding tools. While celebrity or not everyone's personal brand is important, it really isn’t all that vexing for us common folk. The amount of internet fame you have through likes, followers, and friends doesn’t really alter the real world in any way. I understand “it's just fun”, and I’ve probably thought about this more than the average person posting their daily selfie onto “Insta” does, but it doesn’t change the truth of the matter. 

It may be fun, but it all just feels a bit shallow, and fake. And if you truly cared about what outfit I wore Friday night, or the restaurant and club I was visiting Saturday night, you’d ask. My phone would vibrate, and I would respond.  

So I’m done. Goodbye Twitter, Goodbye Instagram. Facebook, you’re deactivated but might pop back up. I don’t hate social media, I’m just done with playing into the toxic environment it can bred.

Goodbye Freshman Year

Courtesy of Google Images

I've been torn my whole first year in college about whether or not I was staying or going. Now that we are three weeks till the end, the decision to stay has been made. There are better universities out there, academically and athletically. There are more diverse universities out there. There are more universities that are a better match and suited to what I wanted out of college. However here I am, staying.

What I realize now that I didn't before was that no matter where you go, college is a transition. I can’t ever say I was homesick, I wasn't, I relished the freedom. The freedom though, and “college” just didn't live up to the grandeur I had envisioned. I got so caught up at looking at my friends at these grand football heavy SEC schools, and friends who left the Midwest for more interesting horizons of LA and NYC that I felt mediocre. I felt as if I was supposed to love where I was, and love it a lot. That a moment of clarity, an AHA moment of “yes this is the place, this is where I am supposed to be” would occur, and it never did. Reflecting now on my time over the last 9 months, and reflecting on life in general, I think you choose every day to decide that wherever you are in life is the right place for you.

This isn't to say you shouldn't have dreams, goals, and aspirations about where you want to be, but to never let where you want to be and the life you want to live hinder you from just enjoying and making the best of the life you have. Sometimes you have to accept the hand you are given, and just play it out till the next round.

Everyone said it to me before I got here, and reiterated it even more now that I am here: “college is the best years of your life”, “you’ll look back at these years and want them back”, “college will change you.” When I really think about this I find all of these statements to be less about college, and more about being young, growing up, and transitioning. There’s a reason people love these years, cause everything’s novel. You are old enough to make your own choices and understand them, unlike being a child. Yet still young enough to get away with excuses of ‘young and dumb’ sans all the responsibilities of adulthood.  College matters because our late teens and early twenties matter, they are a transitional period we just happen to spend (the majority of us) in higher learning.