Entry #5 Status Update

   

    Every second of every day someone is out there on social media racking up social points, broadcasting their daily lives, to climb up this social mountain. There is a chain of social groups that you can track who is best friends with who and who likes what all over the internet. I am appalled by the importance and the affect social media has on these kids. Instead of focusing on real problems, kids are stressed over the amount of likes they have on another persons instagram, they delete pictures if they don't have enough, and they go around asking their friends if they think a picture of them will receive a large amount of popularity. In today's age, at school if you don't have hundreds of likes and comments on a photo, you are nothing. You are at the bottom of this social society. 
    I for one have never spent a huge amount of time on social media in my personal life. I had a twitter, instagram and facebook obviously in highschool, but I don't think I ever received over 30 likes or favorites or whatever on any photo of mine. I definately felt the pressures that these girls have, but never to that extent. I never understood how a person I knew could get 500+ stars on twitter and be the quietist person I knew in class. As someone who is pretty social in person, it astounded me that I never got even close. When my friends would post a picture of themselves they would caption it with something like, "feeling very ugly today" and would get thousands of, "OMG I wish I was you!" and "Don't say that! You're the prettiest person I know!" I don't think I ever got a comment on a picture of mine unless it was something along the lines of, "OMG where are you? That place is so pretty!" This caused me to have terrible self esteem and ultimately resulted in me deleting all social media except Facebook and Snapchat. I don't think it's good for anybody. Nobody should be having that extra stress in life to stay "relevant." It doesn't mean anything once you get out of highschool. You simply don't have the time. I go to school full time and work pretty much just as much, there's no time in between to be updating what's going on in my life on the internet, going through hundreds of posts and commenting in hopes that they will then comment on one of my own. I find it ridiculous. 
     The podcast proves how detrimental social media could be to a person's life. The girls talk about just how much they worry every second about what other people think and how many likes they get on something. The worst is, is that they are aware of the irony of it all. They they mindlessly like and comment on others pictures just so they themselves can stay high up on the social scale. It's a redundancy and should never have this amount of effect on kids. Instead of worrying about what others think of them and who is friends with who, they should be focusing on their schoolwork, getting involved in clubs and sports, spend their time elsewhere, and most importantly keep their heads out of the gutter and realize that it doesn't prove anything in the real world. You can't get a job by telling them the amount of followers you have on instagram. I am sure that some people can, and that becoming a youtubers is just as much a goal as becoming an actress would be however, it is one of those "unrealistic" jobs that only a small percentage of people actually get big in. 
    Social media should not be the focus of someone's life. They should look past the amount of followers they have and be there for the people that are tangible. Focus on real life interactions because if you spend your whole life behind a screen, you will never learn how to react to others in real life.