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| Don't worry... I don't think this is me.. |
Anna Krause? Yep, that's me.
Now type that into Google... Anna Krause?
Yes... wait, no. No, that's definitely not me...
This is what happened when I searched my name on Google. Initially, I was relieved that my life wasn't completely out in the open for people to see. But then as I continued to scroll and scan through the pages and pictures, I began to feel discouraged and almost forgotten or nonexistent. I could not find a single thing that was connected to ME Anna Krause.
Now, I do have a few social media profiles, but even those did not appear on the search results - I don't do much on them and I have privacy settings on. Finally, after becoming more and more frustrated and determined to find myself somewhere, anywhere, I stopped and realized what I was doing. I was "finding myself" with help from the Internet.
In this modern generation, it is expected that you have an e-dentity because apparently that's what people my age do with all their time. I don't deny the fact that I spend too much time online, but I really don't do anything that will affect my virtual image. This is mostly because I don't see why everyone else needs to know what I'm eating or doing or thinking.I do think we should be concerned with how much of our lives are on the Internet for everyone to see, and our e-dentities do carry some weight in society. However, they should definitely not define us since our personal, true identities are the ones that truly matter.
So instead of spending hours trying to find the perfect 10 words to post on Facebook, or editing an unrealistic selfie, or working on that meme that you think may just bring you a few hours of fame and "trending" status, maybe turning off the computer for those precious hours is a better idea? Maybe, just maybe, you'll learn something about yourself or even about the person sitting next to you (imagine that!) that brings new meaning to your real-life i-dentity.
Anna,
ReplyDeleteI love your use of images! You also brought up an excellent point here. Instead of focusing on improving our online image we should work on actually improving ourselves. Often times we see people struggling with basic human to human communication since they are so used to interacting online. If you have enough information on the internet to get you into a potential interview or anything of that nature we should really work on our face to face interactions.
Anna, we seemed to both come to the same conclusion by different routes with regards to this subject, and I appreciate how you qualify your argument with an understanding of how active the internet is in our society. It is so much more convincing to a generation that is heavily involved on the internet when you validate their time spent on Facebook and Twitter instead of demonizing it as detrimental to their mental health. I'm not saying it isn't, of course, but you dodge some potential conflict here by acknowledging this as a bit of a grey area for our generation, and not just for yourself.
ReplyDeleteAnna,
ReplyDeleteI agree with Keenan and Kia, but I do have some questions. I know a lot of people who use social media like Facebook to make business connections and network to get places. Do you think it is worth it to dissent from the opportunity to makes connections online in order to have more time offline. In today's world, how much is too much when it comes to social media?