After our discussion on Monday about FOMO (or fear of missing out for those who are not familiar), whether or not social media makes us happy, sad, or both, and the conclusions we can draw from that, I had a theory I wanted to share.
Although Professor Robinson sort of beat me to my topic of discussion for this post (rats!), I still want to add on to his comment. He mentioned how we typically only post the happy stuff that's going on in our lives. So-and-so just got engaged, this girl had a great weekend and here's the proof with 50 pictures, and someone else just got accepted into the college they wanted! That's all fine and dandy, but--like we discussed in class--this sets up a precedent for social media presence as a whole to be pretty one-sided and not so genuine.
I also think it contributes massively to the phenomenon we know so well as FOMO. Our society is so focused on making people think we are happier than we probably are, that we create this false reality on social media. I'm sure most of you have probably been in the situation where there's that one person you are Facebook friends with that is constantly updating depressing statuses that bother you for some reason. You wouldn't react the same way if it were something positive, and I think that's because that is all we want to see. When we see people having this great time through pictures or updates, it leads us to believe that they are truly experiencing this great happiness, when really, that's most likely not the case. And that creates FOMO.
Laurel Nakadate's art project is a perfect example of an attempt to unmask this false reality we live through social media. In order to "deliberately take part in sadness" the way that we all deliberately take part in happiness, she took 365 selfies--every day for a year--of herself crying. She, too, noticed this "happy" trend on social media, and she wasn't buying it. I think it's extremely interesting to see how social media can bring to light this sort of cultural practice.
No comments:
Post a Comment