Screen addicts

What’s with all of us having our camera 24/7 on at every single situation in life?

It’s no news how smartphones or tablets have become an appendix of human bodies, but come on, does anybody else notice how weird we all look while doing the same gesture when something catches our attention? And what’s even funnier, it’s not a group habit, we all do it even when we are on our own.

As a community manager for a couple of years, I used to put myself under so much pressure to keep up with the social media race that it almost burned me out. After quitting my job, I entered sort of a cocoon mood in terms of social and digital life and realized how much offline I wanted to be. And how much of a viewer I became of others’ streamed life.

I took this photo while having lunch with my friends. The fact that I found my dish so colorful and pinteresting triggered the need to grab my phone and take a picture of it. Not to post it, but just to make a point on this topic: we are all screen addicts. There's a new subconscious streaming condition ruling our lives.

Phones up. Every. Single. Time. While attending big shows, famous travel destinations, ideal places, curious street events, coffee breaks. There’s an endless list. But it’s curious how what we shoot or record doesn’t even meet social media aesthetic standards, but it just feeds not only a dashboard, but most importantly our need to tell our story in real time.

And here is what’s been in my mind during my cocoon stage. What’s behind posting everything? What’s with writing these thoughts and still have an Instagram account? We are streaming our lives. We feel anxious to show what we do, what kind of person we are, what we eat, see, listen rather than live, taste, eat, see or listen in first place.

24/7 online

Private life became history. We are one click away from everyone’s intimacy, which makes that word even lose its meaning. We literally feed ourselves with each other’s posts and stories and got so used to it that end up expecting their content permanently. We create our own idea of people we follow out of what they post and strongly believe we know them. But that is not real, is it?

So, if what we see it’s not real life, what is it that we are all sharing? The life we choose to share.

Let the games begin

I find it disturbing how social media is installing new behaviors based on their rules: likes, friendship requests, “last seen” notifications, number of views, being all of them new standards in nowadays relationships.

As soon as the camera is on, we all act like influencers just because we have and audience, and that’s dangerously addictive. Maybe we behave this way in a search for approval. But honestly, I think that while we worry about posting that new haircut or not, most followers on the other side of your screen, probably just scroll and don’t even care. Sorry to disappoint you, but no one cares, actually.

I’m sure if we put a mirror in front of us every time we grab our phones, we will feel embarrassed of ourselves.

I find it hard to conclude anything out of this. On on hand, I am concerned about social media side effects on us, but, on the other, maybe is more about playing if you don’t want to get hurt.

I just feel worried about how much life we are streaming instead of living.