Personal opinion: yes, it is.
It’s not a secret anymore that social media has profoundly altered how people communicate. One thing that catches my attention the most is how we present ourselves online. Or more related to what I’ve often experienced is how we present “moments” on social media.
Have you ever been to an unorganized event, but then you see many people from the same event just posting a different kind of “vibes” from how the actual event is running? Whether to present the moment itself to look more organized, more fun, or even more memorable than it actually is in real life experience.
I've done something like that a lot when I was a content creator for a brand. That's obvious, right? No matter how chaotic or ordinary the event is, we should create content that only highlights all the good sides and eliminates the rest that would seem boring for the audience.
I can understand when it comes to business strategies and such. But recently, I’ve experienced it in a completely different environment, which made me wonder when exactly we started living this way? Why do we care more about our online personas, but almost neglecting real-life experiences, sometimes?
In this article Ali Jazayeri, Ph.D., associate professor of clinical psychology at The Chicago School’s L.A. Campus said “What concerns most, from a psychologist’s perspective, is the danger of slipping too far into a virtual world and losing a sense of real life, real self, and real priorities.”
That's the important part, knowing our “real priorities” when it comes to real life experiences, especially when it involves other people. Isn't it rude that sometimes we ignore people who actually help us at the exact moment in real life events, only to create post-worthy contents?
We may not consciously ignore those people, but perhaps sometimes our brains just automatically think about online content before we even experience the moment itself in real life. Don't you think about it?
I attended a wedding the other day, and just like any other quite big weddings (where there was so many guests invited), a few moments felt unorganized, such as how the main family members (unconsciously) being ignored, the messy bridesmaid situation, and basically the entire rundown wasn’t on time at all. Yet, the photos and videos of the wedding posted online by some people just looked as beautiful and shiny as possible.
I’m not saying that’s wrong, as many people would also call it a “once of a lifetime event”. But, because so many other people were involved, I think it affected how that “real life experience” became not so great for some.
It seems like many people nowadays are more focused on how the memories would look online, rather than how it felt like to actually be there.
This is not just based on weddings as my example; at any kind of events or situations, oftentimes I experienced how people are so busy taking any kind of trendy contents while they are not aware of the people around them. It's fine if it’s just about us, right? But, what if we make others uncomfortable or even angry because of those behaviors?
Social media not only influences how people share information and maintain a persona, but it also affects how people engage with the world around them. To be honest, I’m specifically talking about visual-based platforms like instagram and tiktok. While those platforms are the most popular, I find one thing lacking on social media is context.
Unlike here on Hive, where people are willing to write over 500 words about a single experience (which might make the reader possibly feel the experience as well), on visual-based social media, we’re only given photos and videos. Of course, there are captions. But captions are sometimes also written to reinforce persona, aren't they?
I know I’m jumping from one thing to another without structure at this point. and it's almost like I write today’s blog in a rage or something😅 (because my example is also a wedding, which perhaps too personal and many people may disagree with my perspective)
But no, honestly I'm just confused and curious if other people also feel some type of way or if it’s just me. This topic is one of the subjects I want to delve deeper into and read more research papers on.
But what do you think, do you have any thoughts about this topic?
It's true though that there are people who are in it for the content rather than immersing themselves and being present. Thanks to social media but honestly, nowadays I do that a lot less which is probably why I don't really have a lot of pictures and would rather live in the present.
That's great, I'm sure people around you appreciate it without even saying it. Maybe all of us just want to make memories, but these days, I feel like some people often go too far just for social media even when the event supposed to be intimate
Well it's true that social media has influenced most of our real life experience that we are suppose to cherish making people invest more attention to their online image than the physical one.
I think we need to be careful before our entire subconscious shift to an online mindset
That's what I mean, and sometimes I'm afraid that I myself might unconsciously fall into that trap too. Thanks for sharing! appreciate it :)