As hard as it is for me to admit, I probably spend at least half of my average day on social media. Its almost as though popular sites such as Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook have become a part of not only my daily routine but are literally embedded into me as a person. I've become accostomed to multiple "study breaks" per hour to check social sites and have even heard my peers justify it to themselves and others as "multitasking". You might be thinking "... WHAT?!", but sadly its true.
Then I ask myself, what exactly are we accomplishing through this so-called "multitasking"? The answer could have a wide variety of answers but in the end its really quite simple. Nothing. We're accomplishing nothing.First of all, lets just agree the word multitasking describes this behavior about as well as the word small describes the Eiffel Tower; all we're doing is destracting ourselves and causing major procrastination.
So what are we distracting ourselves with? Other peoples seemingly perfect lives. I mean, think about it- no one posts a picture of their MacDonalds dollar menu meal, but a $40 steak dinner the size of my toe-nail? Of course. Does an unedited selfie even exist anymore?! Social media makes it so easy to paint ourselves exactly how we want to be seen and leave out the worst bits of ourselves- it is a platform that allows us to only show our good sides. And although, we all edit and post only the best parts of our lives, we see someone elses perfect post, and think we have to somehow live up to our followers standards of living displayed on social media. It's an endless cycle, giving us unatainable standards of happiness, and we're all caught in the web (no pun intended).
Oh and the worst is when we check all of our social media pages and *brace yourself* there's no new posts?! What are we supposed to do then?! Refresh, refresh, refresh-complain about no one posting-refresh, refresh, refresh. And I'm just as guilty of this as anyone else- infact my roomate just told me she watched me check my phone SIX times while writing this- so don't worry, I'm not condoning social media in any way. I think it's a great way to stay in touch with old friends, make new ones, network, and stay up to date with everything going on in the world around us, we just need to take care not to compare our lives to our friends perfect online personas. Remember, there's always more to a story.
Then I ask myself, what exactly are we accomplishing through this so-called "multitasking"? The answer could have a wide variety of answers but in the end its really quite simple. Nothing. We're accomplishing nothing.First of all, lets just agree the word multitasking describes this behavior about as well as the word small describes the Eiffel Tower; all we're doing is destracting ourselves and causing major procrastination.
So what are we distracting ourselves with? Other peoples seemingly perfect lives. I mean, think about it- no one posts a picture of their MacDonalds dollar menu meal, but a $40 steak dinner the size of my toe-nail? Of course. Does an unedited selfie even exist anymore?! Social media makes it so easy to paint ourselves exactly how we want to be seen and leave out the worst bits of ourselves- it is a platform that allows us to only show our good sides. And although, we all edit and post only the best parts of our lives, we see someone elses perfect post, and think we have to somehow live up to our followers standards of living displayed on social media. It's an endless cycle, giving us unatainable standards of happiness, and we're all caught in the web (no pun intended).
Oh and the worst is when we check all of our social media pages and *brace yourself* there's no new posts?! What are we supposed to do then?! Refresh, refresh, refresh-complain about no one posting-refresh, refresh, refresh. And I'm just as guilty of this as anyone else- infact my roomate just told me she watched me check my phone SIX times while writing this- so don't worry, I'm not condoning social media in any way. I think it's a great way to stay in touch with old friends, make new ones, network, and stay up to date with everything going on in the world around us, we just need to take care not to compare our lives to our friends perfect online personas. Remember, there's always more to a story.