by By: Bailey Rogers
Twitter: @baileyyrogers
My friends and I do this thing at dinner, whether at home or out to eat, where we put our phones in the middle of the table face down in a stack and the first person to pick theirs up has to pay for the whole meal. Being that we’re poor college seniors, that is a hefty consequence for taking a glance at whatever notification may be nagging to get your attention. This, to me, is something that should be treasured.
We are looking down instead of up, talking into a microphone instead of to someone in front of them and swiping left or right instead of making conversation with whatever cute boy or girl we see at Starbucks. Why is this? Now don’t get me wrong, I love my social media, it’s where I get most of my information and I’ve recently become a little addicted to the explore page on Instagram (I know a little late to the game). However, being connected to the world and your friends on your phone can become an obsession.
Let’s Bring Science Into It
A study done on teenagers ages 13-18 was done testing out the effects of a social media network similar to Instagram. MRIs were conducted in order to measure the results of this study, and the area of the brain associated with pleasurable activities was closely examined. When these teenagers received “likes” on their photos, their brains literally lit up. This is a part of the phenomenon in which validation of oneself stems from popularity on social media. The danger here is that these likes don’t represent real life. Adding up likes and followers is a quantitative approach to a qualitative problem.
Life Abroad
I studied abroad last summer in Seville, Spain. I had never been so far away from home, and only knew one other person. I was scared out of my mind, but knew it was something I had always wanted and knew I had to do. At first, it was hard to figure out communication in a foreign country because every option involved limitations, whether is was just depending on wifi or paying for an international plan. After being in Spain for a week, I started to meet the other students and form a friend group. A lot of our program activities included sitting on a bus for hours and walking for what felt like miles in 100 degree heat, all including no phone signal and no wifi. Some may think this sounds like a god awful nightmare, but it was the best experience of my life. I got closer to the people in my program than I was with people I had known for three years of college. I didn’t need photos of all the places we went because I looked around and listened. I expected to post all of these amazing photos on Instagram showing everyone back home what I was up to, but more often than not waited weeks until I posted something and it was usually just to pass the time. Those 2 and a half months in Spain were some of the best and most memorable because I was truly able to fall in love with everyone and everything around me first hand, not through my phone.
I’m not saying you should quit social media all together and I’m not saying it’s some evil robot taking over your mind. I think it’s a great way to connect and share what you’re doing with people who you care about. But I do think there’s a line we should all keep in mind when we decide what we are going to share. The photos I shared from being abroad didn’t get the most “likes” or people commenting and asking about my trip, but that didn’t take away what they meant to me. It can be easy to confuse your online persona with your actual self. Your worth is not a number of likes or comments, your number of followers doesn’t reflect your real-life friendships and you don’t need validation from any of these things.
Bailey,
Thank you for how authentic this blog post is because for me it hit really close to home. I never really understood just how much I used my phone until I went abroad because here everyone around me is using their phone just as much. When I went abroad I felt for the first time in my life disconnected from my phone and social media, in a good way. I never really noticed that I wasn’t using it the way that I would if I were in a place where I had cell service all the time. I also agree that I never would have gotten as close with people on my program if I was on my phone all the time. It is so good to know that someone had the same experience as me.
While it’s a shame that it often takes losing your wi-fi access to break the never ending cycle of scrolling through Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, I love how being overseas can force you away from your daily social media habits. I’m definitely guilty of being on my phone too often, particularly when traveling from Point A to Point B so when I’m overseas I appreciate being forced to actually look up and take in my surroundings.
That said, it can be frustrating when you have that perfect “like-generating” photo for Instagram and can’t get it posted!!
Bailey,
I really appreciate the sentiment of your blog post! I think that traveling and spending time abroad offers a great opportunity to reevaluate our relationships with social media. Last summer I traveled across Europe with a friend, and between spotty wifi, international data rates, and just being busy doing cool stuff, we barely used our phones. And guess what, we survived. Not only did we survive, it was the trip of a lifetime and we were able to fully appreciate our time more thoroughly and live more in the moment because we weren’t constantly on our phones. When you travel it’s also fascinating to see how much time and energy people spend taking picture of themselves rather than enjoying the moment. I really appreciate your message that your self-worth is so much more than the number of likes you get online. It’s hard sometimes to remember this because we are so involved in our online communities, but traveling and getting back to a simpler life is a great way to put things in perspective
-Sean Willcox
“It can be easy to confuse your online persona with your actual self. ” This is so powerful and so true, yet it’s so easy to get caught up in your social media profiles and crave validation from likes, follows etc. I love this blog post and it makes me really consider how addicted I am to my phone. Some really good things in here to think about and try out to change social media addiction.
I love the idea of putting your phones in the middle of the table during dinner. This is such a good idea because sometimes I found myself out to eat with my friends and each of us will have our faces in our phones. It is ironic because we agree to go out to eat in order to spend time with each other. I have been forcing myself to leave my phone at home when I can or turning it off while I study. Being connected to my phone is addicting. I think we should all spend more time with face-to-face interactions. It is sad that so many let “likes” define them. Technology is good but sometimes it is too much.
Great article, Bailey. I love how you talked about your vacation and the expectation of documenting everything online for everyone to see. Too often this is how our generation feels when they take big vacations or go exploring, but the exploring is never actually done when you have your phone in your hand. It was also nice that you mentioned we are taking a quantitative approach to a qualitative problem. Many businesses get excited about the amount of likes or followers they have gained, but fail to document what was different about the post that made more people enjoy it. Was the photo breathtaking, the caption was beautifully worded or something all together different? It’s when extra questions asking about the motives behind the likes that businesses can actually learn and research true information that can stand on its own.
Well said.
Bailey,
I am so guilty of this! After I post something, my mood sometimes changes just based on how many likes I’m getting which is silly. And what’s worse is when this affects a person’s self worth. It’s very easy for people to get a false sense of pride or insecurity from the number of followers they have or likes they get on a post. Having 200 likes does not mean that a person is more liked than someone who gets 20 likes. I’ve also noticed that people seem to do things now for the post that they’ll get out of it instead of for the enjoyment. Going on a hike is no longer done for the experience with friends and the view at the end but for the snapchats along the way and the Insta post at the top. We all need to put down our phones sometimes or we’ll miss out on the world and friends around us.
Bailey,
Great perspective on the attachment that we have to social media. I find this very relatable myself. Similar to you, I studied abroad this past summer in Oviedo, Spain and the experiences I had away from my phone most of the summer have humbled me in a way that many people will never have the opportunity to experience themselves. While I was in Spain I wasn’t thinking about my phone or any of my social media because the time difference to America was 12 hours. I wasn’t worried about missing out on my phone because all the action from my home country was happening while I was asleep. I think that if more people learned from your friend group and set aside our phones while having meals, gatherings and other social gatherings, we would have a lot larger human connection than an obsession with technology.
I love this class because it is very different than my other ones but look around. How often do you go throughout an entire class without checking your phone, email, twitter and other social networking sites? I am embarrassed too.
I always told myself that I would never become addicted to social media (I held off on getting a twitter account until Fall 2017 and just recently acquired Snapchat) and for a while, I felt I was doing great. However, an acute sense of anxiety started to develop the more time I spent on social media. Especially when I began to use Instagram more over Facebook, one medium more heavily focused on likes/views versus a medium that is (supposed to be) intended for more conversational use. I started to really focus on using hashtags so I could get more views and likes on my Instagram posts and started to ignore my family and friends on Facebook altogether. Only recently have I realized my emotional addiction to social media and the false sense of validation a hundred plus ‘likes’ can bring.
I really appreciated the link to the University of California’s study on social media’s effects on developing brains.
I made me understand where my anxiety around social media stems from and made me especially grateful that I didn’t start heavily using social media until my early 20’s.
I am going to Queretaro, Mexico this summer and I am incredibly excited for the opportunity to separate myself from the digital social world and connect to the physical world in a way I have never attempted before.
Bailey,
I loved the intro to this because it promoted me to do something similar when reading your post. It made me think to not look at my phone and full engage myself in your post. Often times I find myself thinking I can multitask when I am doing homework or hanging out with friends that was is a text or two going to ruin. I enjoyed the different perspective you brought in when talking about studying abroad and what that meant for your phone interaction. I often forget that crossing over seas the bills get more expensive not just from food but even your cell phone. I liked when you mentioned you shouldn’t quite social media all together but it is definitely making you question more often how you are using social media and for what reasons.
Wow, thank you for sharing. I totally relate to this post. My parents make us put our phones in the center of the table as well. I have done several social media cleanses because it gets to be too much. I often run out of data and have to go two weeks only using wifi, and it is so inconvenient because I am so used to always having connection, but those two weeks I seem to be way more in tune with life and way more productive.