BP2, W5

This week, we learned a lot regarding how social media influences us. Two key concepts include that we place a lot of emphasis on our social media presence by hashtagging or obsessing over our aesthetic and the extent to which we have underscored the power of the selfie. These notions shaped the discussion around readings such as “The Allure of the Selfie, “Social Media Selves,” and the supplementary readings. People have become extremely invested in the posts they are curating that they spend hours on end developing a post that speaks to others…not to themselves. They want validation from others to ensure that the way in which they are living their lives is detected as being correct. If anything, we are creating a generation of people who are almost identical and have no liberating thoughts or ideas to creatively think for themselves.

I learned about Kasch’s study regarding Facebook, as well as, the various mechanisms used to construct an aesthetically pleasing Instagram page. I definitely can discern that Kasch’s investigation is relevant to today. People are constantly viewing their profile to appear a certain way to their friends. As such, they do things like tag or untag themselves from pictures, carefully think out their own posts, and attempt to gain a large friend list. Then, through the different techniques, I came to the realization that people truly care how others view them, and therefore, put endless amounts of time into fulfilling a specific look to their social media, whether that be Facebook or Instagram.

I think much advice can be drawn from this week. Firstly, it has come to my attention that people must not spend as much time on social media. It reaches a point where we begin to get so wrapped up in our own accounts (a small projection of who we are) that we lose ourselves. As such, it is important to keep a healthy distance to one’s social media. Another piece of good advice is that it is not worth it to stress over social media. These platforms do absolutely nothing to enhance our experience on earth. It is important that people know that one’s significance in the world is not produced by the amount of followers they have. Rather, it is the quality of our relationships to our followers that counts.

Kylie Jenner’s Instagram supports everything I have stated above. She heavily lives her life through social media, in order to illustrate a particular image about herself to the public. Nonetheless, I believe that she has stricken a healthy balance with the website. Once she had her child, she knew that her life was worth so much more than her presence on Instagram. Now, she had a bigger purpose in life: being a mother.