In todays blog, I would like to talk about one of my biggest hobbies in everyday life, rowing. And of course, how this is affected by (digital and social) media. I have been rowing for quite a few years now, currently on competitive level at a student club in Delft. (Actually, when this blog is posted and will be spoken about in class, I will be in Boston, America for one of the biggest rowing regattas in the world). Due to me spending most of my time on this sport, all of my cookies and recommendations are filled with rowing content, and all of my rowing friends have the same. Leading from this, I found myself most times when I’m not rowing still looking at rowing content on youtube, Instagram etc. When I started this course, I started thinking more about what this did to my rowing and myself, and I thought this was interesting.
First of all, I think that seeing content on social media, especially from professional athletes or “hype videos” (videos with cool edits about a certain competition or match, often from rowing crews or clubs), gives me motivation. It helps me to have people to look up to, and in this way create goals for myself. This helps me understand that there always is something more to accomplish, and I’m always able to be better, as regular people like me are also able to reach the high level I’m seeing. This can help me to find the motivation, as rowing at a high level takes a lot of time, energy and sacrifices.
Another type of content that you can find online is online teaching and tips and tricks. There are whole youtube-channels like Aram Training completely dedicated to analysing the technique of rowers in videos and giving tips on how to get better rowing technique. There also are Instagram accounts that make reels where someone who was a big college rower gives tips on how to get better at things like seat racing (a race where is determined who gets to be in the top boat), and tips on getting scholarships for university for rowing. Things like this can really improve your rowing and experience, or at least give you the feeling that you are doing so. It of course always is the question if these people are actually classified telling you these things.
The down side of everyone sharing their experiences and rowing career is of course also that it can be make you feel bad about yourself. One thing that is done among the rowing community is sharing your ergometer scores. Ergometer or rowing machine scores are a big factor in how strong of a rower you are. When someone has pulled a big score, and someone sees that and starts thinking: “oh man I will never be able to do that” and starts to feel bad, even when it’s completely unrealistic to compare their scores. The problem with these scores is that it doesn’t give any context on how tall, heavy or old the person is. This could be compared by a girl seeing a picture of a model in bikini, which makes her feel bad about her own body and have unrealistic expectations of herself.
The last thing about receiving all this rowing content, is that it also puts you even more into the bubble you are already in. Rowing is already a little bit of niche sport, with people socializing within their own club or with other people in different rowing clubs, which makes that you get a lot of the same interaction, and talk about rowing a lot. When also seeing this on your social media and youtube a lot, it makes that also in your free time you don’t see much things outside of rowing. This could make your view of the world more narrow than it could be. But this maybe could be translated into a more general question. Due to cookies and all kinds of recommendation algorithms in TikTok and Instagram makes that you see that you mostly see a lot of the content you are already familiar with. Isn’t this limiting our view of the world?
Maybe some of this will not be clear for people not familiar in the rowing world. Feel free to leave a comment and I will try to respond.
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