When thinking about ‘a day in the digital,’ I immediately considered how I could catalogue a day in my life, the accurate amounts of times I engage with my phone, computer, ipad, or other digital devices, and at the end would have an accurate story of a day in the digital era. However, thinking for another moment, I realized none of this was necessary at all. The digital aspects of my life are so engrained into my everyday, that I don’t need to catalogue them to understand how much I rely on them. I could just think and immediately recognize my reliance.
My other realization was of the gratitude I have for our digital times. How much easier it makes my life living oceans away from my family and friends, being able to still talk every day even despite our distance, capturing endless moments on the phone camera, without carrying a big object around and being focused on how much film I have left to use.
Hence my labeling of the digital life as a double edged sword.
Social media is the biggest way that I engage in a digital world, and it does have a pervasive hold on how I live my life. Right as I start my day I have an internal battle to not open instagram, because in doing so I know I will set myself up to waste multiple hours on it that day. At the same time, its exciting to know that theres a world of content and also friends who have shared their life experiences, there for me to see and start my day.
Not to mention, content that people may have shared specifically to me. To be honest, I love when people share videos with me on instagram, and its even become a way that i’ve become closer with some people despite moving away. Or a way for me to realize that someone does want to be my friend and engage with me, as they are even thinking of me in the time we are apart. Sharing instagram reels may seem like a strange love language, but it has become one for me.
At the same time, i’m struck with the realization as I watch some videos, that they are not necessary for my life. Not that this is horrible, but also, I can easily continue to be a student, learn lots, get an impressive career, without watching 50 cat videos a day. Yes they are unnecessary, but again, it is positive, especially when sent from other people as I feel like i am interacting with them by sharing in the experience of the video. Strange right?
Engaging on social media also allows me to curate an online archive of my life, one I can be proud of, which has become a sort of passion project in my time. But at what cost?
To contextualize my social media presence, I use instagram and bereal consistently. Bereal isn’t even trendy anymore, I know, but it has become one of my favorite apps, because of its design to get off the app. I get a short life update from my loved ones and then I have nothing else to look at. I even taught my mom how to use it and its my favorite thing when the notification pops up that she posted, because I can go look at her smiling face.
Instagram on the other hand is more complex. Here I even have two accounts, one main and one for more chaotic posts which has less followers. Contrary to goal of gaining followers, I actually like to have fewer overall, because I have a general sense of who is seeing what I put out there. This also gives a slight comfort when I realize that I have put so many images of my life in other peoples hands.
Again the double edged sword appears, because I love posting. Genuinely, making collages, categorizing my photos, I feel organized and artsy and I love to have an archive of these projects to go back to. At the same time, it takes a lot of time to create these pieces, and once i’m on the app i’m prone to be distracted by it and sit there scrolling instead.
It seems to be that every aspect of my digital life has both a perceived postitve and negative. There have been many times where i’ve questioned if i’ve just been brainwashed by social media into believing that it is at all positive for my life. But then I remember that it allows me to keep up with more people in a much more calm way, and is a creative outlet.
So in all certainty I can say that it is truly both negative and positive for my life. While I wish I had some big statement to make on how to improve in my daily digital life, it feels like the best thing I can do is just continue on trying to balance as best as I can, and still live life outside of the digital as well.
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