Social media has changed our culture by making face-to-face
communication more shallow and making it okay for people to post things about
their lives that would never have come up in regular conversations. Rather than
having individually targeted conversations with people, a lot of social media
users throw personal information out there until somebody bites. I love social
media as much as the next millennial, but it’s getting out of hand.
I use each of my social media channels in different ways; Facebook is for
my family and friends, Twitter is where I complain about things, Instagram is
to show off, Tumblr is for memes and shitposts, and Snapchat is for people on
campus I know but not closely enough to text. I run a tight ship so all of my accounts are
private and I evaluate every follower request I get. Every time Facebook
notifies me that it’s someone’s birthday and I don’t know them well enough to
say “Happy Birthday!,” I delete them. It’s so easy when Facebook gives me one
of these updates every day:
I like Jess so I sent her a quick HBD message and logged out. But tomorrow, who knows?
Purging my accounts relates to one of my January resolutions, which was to have less screen time, but I
still spend most of my downtime on social media or other apps like Pinterest. I
use Facebook the most because people link to articles I want to read and type
much longer posts than a quick snap or tweet. I have to be ready when one of
our well-meaning family friends posts a comment like
on my recent post before my friends start trolling me because of
it.
I think the biggest impact social media has had on how I
communicate with my peers is that people over-share so much online. Knowing
intimate details about other people’s lives through posts about mental illness, sexual assault, or other experiences they've had. It’s people I’ve never even
talked to and because of social media I know things about them that would have
never come up in regular conversations. I don't know how to react when I see them in person and I know such personal information about their lives but don't even know their major.
Our culture has shifted from your audience being the lunch table
you sit at to anyone you could think of to friend online, from people you knew
in elementary school but haven’t contacted in years to someone you met once at
a mutual friend’s birthday party. Everyone thinks that other people want to
know what’s happening in their life and it's not .
Conversely, I think social media has negatively affected
one-on-one communication. When I go out to dinner or hang out with my friends
we all check our social media multiple times during the outing and it doesn’t
phase us anymore. Excluding my immediate circle, I find out more about my acquaintances’ lives online than
from when I spend time with them.
Something I would be interested in learning about in relation to
this would be how many people the average person calls and texts prior to
posting news on social media. As my life changes and I get a full-time job or engaged
or start a family I wonder who I would reach out to other than my mom/dad,
sister, grandma, and the two group chats I have with my home friends and my Albion
friends. I can’t imagine finding out a relative or close friend is engaged
through a changed Facebook status instead of a phone call but I anticipate that
it will happen multiple times throughout my life.
