How Social Media Has Turned Us Into An Attention Seeking Generation That's Never At Peace
http://www.mensxp.com/special-featu...seeking-generation-that-s-never-at-peace.html
It’s such a strange thing, isn’t it? How there’s so much going for us, nothing’s impossible anymore, no distance is distance enough, the people farthest from you are just a click away, life is more convenient than ever before and yet, it feels like this is the worst time to be born in.
Everyone seems to be having ‘the time of their lives’ – all 986 Facebook friends of yours. They’re either out partying at the best club in town or holidaying in Milan or attending fancy destination weddings or just chilling with friends or winning scholarships at an overseas university while you’re sitting at home, figuring out what you want to do with your life. The more you look at their pictures, the worse you feel about yourself. They’re totally winning at life, aren’t they? And look at you – this sad, little person who’s always lagging far behind. All this, because someone posted a photo of a cheesecake.
It’s such a sham – to see just happy smiles, pouts and crazy faces. Where’s the truth? Social media is a pretentious world that does good to nobody. That girl has thousands of followers on Instagram for the crazy selfies she uploads. But nobody knows her life sucks just as much as yours, that she doesn’t even like most of the friends she poses with, that she’s going through a terrible break up, that it took a month of saving (and starving) for that one #OOTD picture.
People smile so hard trying to convince the world the world they’re #happy, if you look closely, you can even see the cracks.
We’re a generation that lives under the constant pressure of convincing people that we’re having the best time almost all the time. We live through display pictures, likes, comments and followers. We’re a generation that seeks answers to everything in life on the internet. We envy those who seem to have better lives than us. When nothing goes right in life, we seek validation online, from those who barely know us for who we really are, those who couldn’t care less, those who are themselves stuck in this vicious circle of feeling better by getting likes and comments.
Of course, it feels great when you upload a picture and it gets everyone talking. It may not mean anything but that instant gratification can be very, very comforting at times. But soon, it becomes an obsessive need to seek that support. It happens to the best of us. It IS happening to most of us.
Turns out, we’re all swimming in the same waters, all equally miserable and all equally scared to admit it. We’re all living a lie, fooling each other and getting fooled ourselves.