Always ahead of
the times, oh the mirth, I must admit I jumped on the Instagram bandwagon
in 2012 when it was purely a photo sharing site and a real contrast to the
nosey likes and comments that Facebook presented on a daily basis. For a
newly-turned 20 year old at university
I found it exciting to show off my latest drunken escapades (sorry Dad,
although now you follow me on Instagram I'm sure you know) with some amazingly
tragic hashtags to accompany them.
Since then
social media and the world we surround ourselves in has evolved to obsess
over these sort of platforms with
pretty much every man, woman, the LGBT community and their dogs having
an Instagram account (there are plenty of dogs I can
assure you) - but why? Social media in the last few years has
ballooned out of proportion and has become both an extremely useful and viable
tool for many to create and gain support, whilst also shrouding secrets and
awful truths behind its Valencia filters
(other filters also available).
It's astounding
from speaking to peers and colleagues of their true interpretation of this
site, to some it's an obsession to others it's pointless. I see daily posts of
people actually making money - can you believe that? - making money via Instagram likes
and traffic through their pages and in all honesty, fair play to them. The damage, however, that these
'fake' profiles are doing to our daily lives is undeniably evident though
and slightly scary when put into context. Far from simply viewing pictures of our friends, colleagues and
heroes, time and again searches through Instagram lead us to
countless snaps of unattainable edited models or videos of swanky
clubs with every Grey Goose or Ciroc bottle under
the sun on the tables. The problem here is that whilst most of us know of the
sheer abnormality of these 'lives' we are given a sneak peek into, thus we
fall victim to desire a mirror image of that exact ‘picture-perfect’ life.
Clever marketing some may say - or is this just a trap for most? My point being
that, our expectations of our own lives become shrouded behind a fantasied game
where the only way to gain satisfaction is by receiving likes from, in the most
part, total strangers. What do we stand to gain from this murky gratitude?
An incredibly unwise person once said to me; “Instagram is not
real life” and quite ironically (although I'm sure he didn't mean this)
this was also his Instagram bio so it
probably wasn't all that smart, but the mind does wonder to what degree the
things we are presented with are real, and what is purely fantasised and quite
frankly unattainable. Why, if we feel we want the nice things we see do we
simply sit there and put a love heart on a picture (I thought we all grew
out of Bebo years ago), rather than actually being
motivated enough to be our own people. Instagram both creates
and ruins trends, one day you're looking at a blue dress (it definitely wasn't
white/gold!) then the next you're five pages deep into an account
about fitness in the Maldives (not from experience I promise).
Our senses are
engaged more when we are given vibrant colours and
images - it's been proven - yet sitting behind a phone seems so futile when
each and every person doing this could be actually spending their time far more
wisely and productively. Alas we are a generation of dreamers and Instagram provides us
with the escapism that so many desire. Given previous articles findings, Ford's
2014 consumer trend report theorised that:
"62% of
adult’s worldwide report better self-esteem after positive social-media
feedback."
What originally
started for many as perhaps vanity showmanship (we are all guilty of this) has
now become a deep desire for validation for so many? Most would prefer ten likes
on their latest post rather than a real human actually telling them that they
are beautiful, and by doing this we have become a society that is afraid of
presenting real emotion [but that is another kettle of fish entirely].
My point here is
that the very characteristics of social media are flawed yet so addictive - why
do we care about our latest follower, Andy from Luton? We never knew
Andy but being another number on our followers list brings joy - why? Well, I
believe it's the factor of distance, we like to be alone while
remaining connected (it's a paradox I'm still trying to get my
own head around) where they are quick to judge anything and everything on the
internet but won't comment in person whatsoever. We are fast in danger of becoming
far distanced from the ones we should truly love and care about
while prioritising things and
people who will never have any real impact on our lives.
Choose your
family over the next five picture Instagram photoshoot;
choose to walk your dog over taking 15 pictures of them, choose spending time
and making real memories rather than a forced message conveyed through a ultimately
artificially-intelligent platform that we have all been guilty of glorifying.
With time
perhaps people will grow out of these obsessions, perhaps not - but the real
pictures and comments that will truly change your life, and we will only realise this in
time, will always and always have been there - just not on an app
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