Tracking my online activity for an hour showed me just how much the Internet has reduced my attention span…after looking at something for mere seconds, I move on to the next thing unless I am absolutely fascinated. During my hour, I watched and replied to Snapchats, read the news via the New York Times Twitter account, searched for a vintage jersey I’ve been wanting on Etsy, Ebay, and Depop, and got lost in the familiar black hole that is the Instagram explore page. Aside from reading the news at home, doing all of these activities pre-Internet would have been virtually impossible. Connections with friends would not be as constant and maybe not as strong—one of the reasons I believe this generation feels so close is because we are constantly texting, Snapping funny pictures, DMing memes we think our friends will laugh at too, etc. Looking at it from a strictly advantageous point of view, the Internet has made life significantly more convenient. Instead of flipping through racks for hours at a consignment store, I can search for the vintage piece I want online. Instead of having to source a trend report from Doneger, I can go on Instagram and see what pieces are hot right now.

In Coudry’s text, he points out that although we are all inundated with media from every angle, we choose which media to actively consume. “The recent waves of media saturation are cumulative, making the term ‘saturation’ inadequate…But how saturated by media each person’s world is—how actively people select from the media landscape available to them—remains uncertain.” To me, this feels especially relevant on social platforms like Instagram and Twitter where we choose who to follow, what posts to click on, what posts to share. We’re able to tailor our online experiences to our preferences, customizing these platforms so that we can get the most out of them according to our wants and needs. But perhaps this can also serve as a disadvantage—by choosing just to follow, like, and share that which we already have an established interest in, we may be missing out on discovering new topics of interest.

In my opinion, digital media is mostly positive if we are sure to remember one thing: social media is deceiving. Social, arguably the most engaging and “important” part of digital media, has the ability to be all-consuming, to serve as a platform of comparison, leading some people to simply quit rather than continue on with the facade.

credit: The Guardian

Instagram star Essena O’Neill (above) changed all the captions on her photos before completely quitting social media, citing the fake nature and unrealistic standards the online culture promotes. Her act made headlines, leading me to ask the following questions…

1. Do you think quitting social media fixes the issues associated with it? (example: body image in O’Neill’s case)
2. It’s no secret social media has made many of us more competitive—do you notice this translating to your “real” life as well?