The Internet and Social Media
News, social media,
has the internet really consumed our lives? In this era of digital media, who
we are online, who we portray ourselves through Facebook, twitter, Instagram
other social media is often not a true refection of who we are but who we want
people to see us to be. Of course this is nothing new but we never really think
about it, it is worth looking at society in the digital age and ask hard
questions about our life style. Lets first take a look at the internet and
human behaviour. Riley’s dad made a very important observation; he mentions
that historians use hieroglyphics, papyrus scripts, books, journals, statues,
tablets in order to determine how a society was in a given period of time. What
will historians use in the future to reconstruct/analyse our society? The
internet.
Lucas: If people in the future use the Internet to figure out how we are
then they will think we are pretty ridiculous.
Riley’s dad: Yeah, why so?
Lucas: Because the Internet makes us look like we are a society who only
cares about a bunch of dancing cats.
Farkle: But we are more than that
Riley’s dad: We are. But no one knows that.
Take a look at most
viral videos; accidents, pranks, memes, silliness take over the internet by
storm. We all know the video of the kid adding up to 21, or the panda sneezing.
Those videos of dancing cats the get millions of views but the discovery of a
new planet only gets a couple thousand or hundred likes. Think about YouTube
for a second, the most subscribed channels with millions of subscribers are
gamers and vlogers but people who tackle real world issue or education such as
Crash Course or John Oliver only have a couple thousand. We seem very plastic,
shallow sometimes don’t we with our clicks, our likes our favourites. In fact,
we seem like a society who don’t care about things very much. We don’t give
real meaning or value to the things that matter. Anything, weather that would
be the discovery of a new treatment for a disease, the discovery of new
planets, a vlog or a first gameplay of the new Fifa game just seems to get replaced
by something new tomorrow. An example, a long time ago Edward Snowden revealed
documents belonging to the NSA and CIA about domestic surveillance and the
collection of information without the consent of the American people. It was
all over media, everyone was talking about it, it was important to understand
the documents revealed and decide weather the government should still be
allowed to collect everyone’s information. How many of you knew about that? How
many of you know about the different programs that the government implements? How
many of you recognize him or know who he is? How many of you know Piewdipie?
How many of you know the Kardashian? How many of you know Taylor Swift broke up
with Tom Hiddleston? How many of you know the panda sneezing? If things can get
so easily replaced then they must have been not very important in the first
place and we skip over, get over things that are really important. They get a
lot of clicks, like and comments and then fade out when the next thing comes
along. What is wrong with a little distraction? Nothing, if that is all it is.
Its not a distraction at all, it is a lifestyle.
Maya: I’m just going to put whatever
Riley: (Slams the laptop shut) No, what we put on our profile is going
to follow us into high school, and into college and into our careers and into
my marriage and into your five.
Riley: I can’t think of my interest
Maya: You can think of your interest; you are just worried that your
interests aren’t interesting and your profile will bore the whole school. Your
favourite movie.
Riley: No. What if people don’t share my interest in farm animals who
save the day.
Maya: Why do you care about why other people think?
Riley: That is all I do. What if no body likes me?
Maya: Just write down what you think and stop being so dramatic… You are
just worried because your name is on it. Write down all your answers as Jexica
and if nobody likes you, you are fine cause they won’t know who it is
Riley: Okay. This already feels easier.
Online we seem to be different
than who we are in real life. We look for our perfect profile image with the
best filters. Or for the perfect quote instead of thoughts of our own. Or maybe
we post something in the hopes of getting attention. While it is true that
sites such as Facebook and Twitter have allowed us to connect with people we
never would have connected with in the first place, remain in contact over long
distances, how many of the people in your friend’s list, followers do you
actually know and talk to. I am not saying social media is a bad thing but
maybe the way we approach is. We may upload something hoping that we get a lot
of clicks and likes instead of just doing it because we believe that people
need to hear our opinion, or we want to motivate others, or just show our
friends the nice time we are having. Many times it is just about the fame. Riley
with her Jexica profile became the most popular girl in school. Everyone wanted
to know her, be her friend because she was so cool and real and relatable. Then,
a video of an animal doing cute things went wild and she lost half her
followers. This highlights the previous point made in the show, something
popular today will get replaced by something else tomorrow. Was she ever
important to these people in the first place? It has become a habit to have
something new, exciting, maybe that is why this current generation has on
average shorter relationship’s because we move from one thing to the next so
quickly. It is repetitive I know but I can’t stress this point enough. People
may say ah but it is just the internet. Well that is going to live after we are
gone. It is our tablets, our manuscripts, the history of our age. Behaviour on
the internet is a reflection of who we are as a person and the things it teaches
us can affect our lives in a very real sense. 
In addition to wanting to be popular Riley
shows what many people go through with the internet. Afraid to show our
interests, our favourite movies, books, dislikes, likes, etc. because of online
hatred or harassment. Online harassment is one of the biggest problems in our
modern society. Violence, anger, hatred spread quicker and more vigorously. Go
through the twitter, Youtube page of any female gamer or female personality for
that matter they get a lot of hate, death threats, rape threats. Why? Because anonymity
encourages people to go negative and we are afraid to be ourselves because we don’t
want to be on the receiving end of that hate. I have said it before, in fact I have
a whole piece dedicated on why you should be true to yourself first without
worrying so much about what other people think about you but it is especially
true on the internet. She has an incredible group of friends who like her for
who she is. But wanting to be liked by everyone has become her priority?
