In a society dominated by widespread evasive social media bridging the gap between the intimate details of one person’s life to another; one has to think, does this personal insight into the lives of others stifle our development as individuals? Reality shows such as Keeping up with the Kardashians. Jersey Shore, Bad Girls Club, and Love and Hip Hop place the lives of celebrities and socialites alike on display readily available for the emulation of millions. The ability to view the thoughts of a complete stranger via twitter, and pictures that tell the complex story of a person’s life on instagram; has caused the distinction between personal and public life to diminish completely.
There is an old saying, “A man does not know who he is until he takes a walk by himself”. In today’s society there is no such thing as “a walk by yourself” or alone time for that matter. People’s faces are constantly submerged into their iPhone screens as they soak in the newest trend, hottest song, and double tap on pictures as they scroll through their timelines digesting the newest events in the lives of others. Our lives are constantly being connected to one another’s, constantly broadcasted subjugating us all to becoming, instead of individuals, walking compilations of our twitter/instagram followers, our timelines and news feeds, and our Netflix ques. Independence of thought has been replaced by retweets and reposts. Personal taste in clothing has been replaced by popular instagram pictures and bloggers. And overall philosophy on life has been construed by the popular acronym “YOLO”.
Think to yourself how is your time dictated? Are you consistently itching for the next post, the next status update, the next tweet? Is the majority of your time spent glued to your phone scrimmaging through multiple social media apps?
In the majority of cases, the answer is yes.
It is safe to say that it is almost impossible to retain a true individual existence in a society ruled by social networks and media plugs everywhere you turn.
I challenge Georgia State students to withdraw themselves from social networks and the mass media for one hour each day and focus this time on personal, self-development. Sometimes one must check out of the lives of others to truly check into their own.
