Social Media

Social media is just a part of life these days. Whether it be Facebook, Twitter, or whatever, it's honestly unavoidable. Even if you go to great lengths to live without it, there are undoubtedly numerous people in your life who will find ways to rope you back into it, whether it be including you in posts, mentioning you, or simply acknowledging your existence. I think social media is both a good and a bad thing. It links the world together and lets us know how distant friends and family may be doing, however it can also have an unhealthy hold on us at times. I can't remember the artists name, but I saw a few of his illustrations (on Facebook ironically) depicting how social media has taken over our lives. One of the images was of a man in a prison cell looking through binoculars made to look like the Facebook logo, implying that he had become a shut in, relying on social media for contact with the outside world. I can't argue that for some people, and for myself at times, social media has done more to disconnect us than to connect us. We get so absorbed in the online world that we forget to get out and experience life first hand. It feels like kids are getting wrapped up in social media younger and younger, and it makes me think. A lot of kids are glued to their phones and not experiencing life for themselves. I know I sound like I'm preaching, and a lot of people my age sound that way but it is true to an extent. I feel like I'm from the bridge generation. People, like myself, born in the late 80's and early 90's had the privilege of growing up along side technology and the internet. We are neither from the time without the internet, nor from the time that that the internet had become everything. I remember, and am very grateful, that as a young child my parents limited the time I had with electronics. They made my siblings and I go outside, ride our bikes, and do other things besides being inside on electronics. That's not to say we didn't have our fair share of computer time, but there was a healthy balance. I think that that healthy balance is still important as an adult. I spend too much time on the internet at times which is why I try to spread my time out. In this day and age, technology and the internet are just a part of life, but that doesn't mean they have to be the dominant part of life. Likes and follows have become currency but only to those that deem them as such. Whether we realize it or not, technology only has as much of a hold on us as we allow it to have.