Filtering Pictures or Filtering Lives?

Filtering pictures or Filtering lives?

From using the right app, to editing each detail, Social Media has proven to be very precise, about what is and isn’t considered “cool”. It is found that many people like to portray themselves, differently than in real life. We, especially as the younger generation, are conditioned to project only the best and most unrealistically happy moments of our life. It has become a norm, to always either project the most “happy” moments of your life or the most, “depressing”. Is it for attention? Possibly, but after interviewing a friend of mine, who not so long ago deleted her instagram account - explained to me the reality behind the 4th wall.

Normally, I’d think social media (in this case, Instagram), was a way to connect people while sharing snippets of our own lives, through the use of photography. Apparently not. There are some to many teenagers, who are strongly impacted by the pressure of social media. The response I got from my friend was,

“Instagram, really was the last thing I needed at the time. It was adding more and more pressure, to my long-enough list. You need to post at a certain time, to get a certain amount of likes. Having less than 100 followers wasn’t considered cool.Even your feed has to be decent enough. It was the exact opposite of what I thought it would be, and it really just added onto my stress list.”  

Regardless of whether we realize it, we seem to care a lot more about our digital identity than our real, general, identity. There are some people, who let their digital identity define them. So if you were to judge someone by their instagram profile, would your judgement be accurate? Or would it give you the complete opposite reflection of them? This entire process, of molding an online you, is heavily influenced by other people, and their own online versions of themselves. Here’s the confusing thing about social media, its a way of connecting people, and creating our online identity. But shouldn’t our identities be the same everywhere? Online, offline, shouldn’t matter. People aren’t supposed to have 2 different identities, because our identities should define us and what we stand for.

         
          - Rthvika