The Generation of "Likes" and "Followers"

After reading various articles and posts about the Instagram model named Essena O’Neil who “quit” social media, and performing the tech-journal exercise it has caused me to do a lot of thinking about the affects social media has on society today. I also came to the conclusion that although it may seem as if someone has it all or is living an exciting life on social media platforms such as Instagram, it could be the furthest thing from the truth.

            Essena O’Neil is 18 years old and was an Instagram model until she recently decided to get rid of all of her social media accounts because they do not depict “real life” O’Neil would make around $1400 per post and had over 600,000 followers. O’Neil said she deleted her accounts, for that everything she posted was edited in order to gain more likes and followers. If one was just looking at O’Neil’s posts they would think how beautiful she was and how she has the perfect body, but in reality her photos were altered and edited, and she was not truly happy. Since quitting social medial, O’Neil has deleted her accounts she has started her own website called letsbegamechangers.com, which has the main goal to promote conscious living and to generate conversation about social issues.

            After reading about Essena O’Neil, another story came to mind. Two years ago a college freshman, at the University of Pennsylvania, by the name of Madison Holleran committed suicide. Holleran had been suffering from anxiety and depression since coming to college, and sought help but she tragically took her own life after returning from winter break her freshmen year. Those who knew her and even outsiders said she always looked happy and especially how her social media pages portrayed her as being happy and looked like she was really enjoying herself at college, but it was the furthest thing from the truth. This heartbreaking story is another example of how misleading social media can be. Although it may have seemed she was enjoying the life of a college freshmen, she was actually struggling and very unhappy. This story is another example of how misleading social media can truly be, and that just because someone is portraying as if everything is okay, it can be the furthest thing from the truth. And we as society need to stop using social media to validate whether or not someone is happy.  

            This past week we had to keep a log of all of the times we used technology in a day for our class. After completing this assignment, I was appalled how much I used technology, but more specifically how much of the time I spend on social media sites, such as Instagram and Facebook. I analyzed how constantly looking at my friends’ pages made me feel, and most of the time it would not make me feel good. Numerous thoughts crossed my mind such as, I wish I could be doing that, why can’t I be having that much fun, or why don’t I look like her. I realized that I need to limit my use of social media because it is doing more harm than good. I also came to the conclusion, especially after reading the stories about the two young women, that everything is not what it seems, and that it is very easy to hide things over social media. It is important that this generation stops worrying about getting the most likes or more followers, and rather to just live in the moment and to not worry about what others are doing and try to compare to them.