Our Generation

Back in October, I noticed someone I follow on Instagram hadn't been posting as frequently and hopped over to her profile to check things out. In her bio was a link to this article. I read it, relating to everything. I felt guilty and ashamed, but used it as a something that would help me become better. Ever since, I have had it as a tab on my phone and read it every now and then as a reminder.

We are a generation of scrollers. As a teenager growing up in the technology age, it's pretty hard to avoid social media. I will 100% admit that I'm a regular user of it all- every morning, I give myself a few minutes to read my "morning newspaper" aka scroll through my feeds to see what has happened in the 6-8 hours I've been asleep; by midday I've usually looked at my feeds in between class or when we're allowed to have our phones out; the first thing I do when I get home is catch up on everything I missed; it's checked during homework breaks; the last thing I do before I go to sleep is scroll through once more. But as we scroll through these multiple feeds, our heads are looking down seeing things that really do not impact us, information that most of the time, we could live without knowing. As much as I ADORE following so many people on Instagram, I know that my life would be no different without them. I don't really need to what my favorite NYC blogger is doing with her two kiddos in the city or what color my favorite beauty blogger is painting her nails. Sure, it's fun to have a look inside people's lives, but as our heads are down scrolling through the images of other people's lives, we're missing what's right in front of us- our own precious and beautiful lives.

We are a generation of counter-of-likes. We look for affirmation from other people, whether they be our closest of friends or strangers. We take pictures of the pretty parts of our lives, then put a filter on them, post them, and impatiently wait for the likes to come in. There's a million situations in which numbers do not define us, and our pictures are undoubtedly one of them. On Instagram, we wait for that lucky number 11, the person who turns our likes from everyones names to the number of likes. When I was first on Instagram, I actually had no idea that it was for picture sharing, I thought it was just an editing app. Then I slowly began to realize that other people could follow me and look at what I was sharing. It took me a long time to get those 11 precious likes and I didn't even really care about them at the time. I really wish I could say I don't care about the number of likes I get nowadays, but I do. For the most part though, it's not that important to me- I post pictures for me, to remember whatever moment in life that I love.

We are a generation of counter-of-favorites. Not only do we seek affirmation in the number of people who like our pictures of life and its musings, but we want people to like our words. When we post something or tweet something, we're again waiting for people to favorite, retweet, like, or comment on what we have to say. Since when does it matter what other people think of what we say? Can't we just say things for us anymore? This desire for validation has created an endless, toxic cycle.

We are a generation of fear. As Glennon put it, we live with FOMO, fear of missing out. This is something that comes as a natural insecurity for teenagers, as we worry about being liked, being invited to things, making the cut. Just because we aren't in all the moments we wish we were does not make us worth any less. High school is a time of awkwardness as we all try to figure out where we fit in the world so being completely absorbed by our phones doesn't really help. Can you imagine if we put down our phones and instead of learning about people by their profiles, we talked to them and actually knew who they really were versus who they shared to be on the Internet? Wow what a thought.

We are a generation of comparers. Theodore Roosevelt once said, "Comparison is the thief of joy". Social media makes us look at other people's lives and then at our lives. Oh shoot, I don't have clothes that are what is "trendy" right now, or do I have a luxury car, or perfect relationships, or the best hair, or the money for several foreign getaways, or whatever it may be. That must mean my life is not good enough. Wrong. When we begin to look more at other people's lives, we begin to look less at ours. We begin to see less and less value in the many blessings we have right in front of us because we're too busy lusting after what's not ours. We begin to feel bad and of less value because our lives are not the 'perfect' (read as staged and filtered) ones that others post of. We lose sight.

We are a generation of condensed thinkers. I went through a period of life where with everything I did, I tried to think of a creative, witty summary to describe it in 140 characters or less, or a short caption with a hashtag or two. Oh man, I thought in hashtags all the time. Hashtags people. Seriously? #seriously. The best moments in life are those that cannot be described so briefly, but those that are so wonderful and meaningful that you could think of a million different ways to describe with endless words.

One of my New Year Resolutions was to be present. To simply enjoy the moment and take it in. As M once said, some of the best memories in life aren't captured with pictures because we're simply enjoying being in the moment, at the moment. My biggest pet peeve in life besides my mom leaving the faucet on is when people are on their phones when they're with a group of people. COME ON PEOPLE! Put down the phone, and enjoy who you are with! If you would rather text or snapchat someone else than talk with you are with, then why don't you just go be with them. I completely understand texting your parents, your employer, or a sibling to figure out something really quick, but once that's over, please just put away your phone. Tuck it in a pocket, put it in your purse, turn it off. I promise you, there's a liberating feeling that comes with this. It's great to not be chained down to something. Yes, you are together, but not really until each other is the only together you are with.

I always think back to the days before cell phones. People did not share their pictures for likes, their words for favorites. They did not snapchat people, and they didn't text. AND THE WORLD WENT ON.

A week or two ago, I read this article to Mackenzie as we were sitting enjoying Sonic slushes. We had just been talking about how we were quite frankly jealous of the life of a girl we follow on Instagram. She was smart, pretty, all the boys loved her, strong in her beliefs, came from a family with money, and managed to make everything look beautiful while being oh so humble about it. Oh how we wished we were her. Oh how we had spent hours looking at her profile, imagining what our lives would be like if we were her. Oh man, our lives sucked. But after we read the article, we finally accepted that her life was not as perfect as her feed made it out to be. We saw the good in our own lives because that's what we really had.

As I finish this up, I want you all the know I do not believe social media is bad. I believe there is so much good that comes from it! A favorite lady of mine, Caroline, shares how community can be built with social media. How there is so much opportunity for good. We can create a network, in which we grow and build each other up instead of comparing and looking for others opinions. Social media is a place where we can share our favorite moments of life, where we can find friends, and maybe even find out more about ourselves. Without it, I woudn't have found some of my favorite bloggers, I wouldn't have learned little life tips, I wouldn't have known all I know today. It is both helpful and hurtful, nourishing and numbing. It's not something I plan on quitting, but something I know my world does not revolve around. With or without it, I'm still Hannah.

"One of the most important things about social media is knowing when to put your phone down and experience life." -Taylor Swift

Be present, be in the moment. Look beyond the screen and put down the phone- stop the snapchatting, the Instagraming, the tweeting, the posting. Start enjoying. :)

xo
Hannah