{"id":63335,"date":"2018-09-30T17:31:12","date_gmt":"2018-09-30T17:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wellvyl.com\/death-abs-smoothies\/?p=63335"},"modified":"2020-06-09T07:53:04","modified_gmt":"2020-06-09T07:53:04","slug":"are-we-living-digital-lives-through-analog-filters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wellvyl.com\/media\/are-we-living-digital-lives-through-analog-filters\/","title":{"rendered":"ARE WE LIVING DIGITAL LIVES THROUGH ANALOG FILTERS?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>How to Create Your Perfect World on Social Media<\/b><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Question: how many different social media accounts do you have? How often do you check them? Or post, then check them, sometimes obsessively, to see how many likes, new followers, shares or comments you\u2019ve gotten, or how often you\u2019ve been tagged? <\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We live in an age where there are cameras everywhere. You can\u2019t step out into the street of any city and walk more than three blocks without having been captured from almost every angle. You live in the woods and think you\u2019re off the grid? Google maps know where you are. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The camera is ubiquitous, and it\u2019s mostly our fault. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We live in the age of selfies, cataloging and posting every aspect of our days and our lives. Are we all <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">that<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> vain and if that\u2019s true, why is the rate of depression growing in the United States, especially among <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.healthline.com\/health-news\/depression-the-growing-american-mental-health-storm#6\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">19- to 32-year-olds<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u00a0The age of selfies had no doubt contributed to the growing trends of people who, at younger and younger ages, are going in for <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/science-and-health\/2018\/8\/10\/17434088\/plastic-surgery-face-lips-photo-snapchat-dysmorphia\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">plastic surgery<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.plasticsurgery.org\/news\/blog\/why-are-millennials-getting-botox-and-fillers-in-their-twenties\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Botox treatments<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> to improve their looks.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Social media has taken a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.educationworld.com\/a_news\/report-social-media-blame-low-self-esteem-young-women-2903645\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">heavy toll<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> on our self-esteem and feelings of low self-worth.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Every era has its solution for building self-confidence<\/b><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The 90s were the era of self-improvement. Working out and workout videos were the go-to. They were there to help you get in shape, and feel better about yourself both mentally and physically. When you look good, you feel good and have a better self-image. A definite boost to your self-confidence. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Have_a_nice_day\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">have a nice day<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Social media has not only raised our exposure level: it has also raised the bar<\/b><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now, not only is there the pressure to look good at all times: you also have to have an interesting life and personality as well. How else do you expect to get those likes and shares? And what if you don\u2019t? \u00a0What\u2019s your first reaction? <\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">What\u2019s wrong with me? Why doesn\u2019t everybody like me? Am I not boring? <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Losing followers is even worse. Again, our first reaction tends to be <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">what did I do or say wrong<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">? <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Why doesn\u2019t this person like me<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">? <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Aren\u2019t I pretty enough?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The answer? You\u2019ve done nothing wrong. You\u2019ve said nothing wrong. And aren\u2019t you pretty enough for what? The red carpet? This is for the \u2018Gram, not the Grammies. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Truth #1: Not everyone is going to like you. <\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>Truth #2: People can be much meaner online than they\u2019d ever dream of being when encountering you in the physical world. <\/b><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Social media has given people license to disregard social filters, such as manners and common decency. Everyone feels free to be a critic \u2013 and a harsh one. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let\u2019s be honest: do like everyone you meet in the physical world? Chances are that you don\u2019t and not everyone likes you either, so where\u2019s the surprise? <\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We construct these follower pods, adding people, often whether we know them personally or not, or we follow someone so that they\u2019ll (hopefully) follow us back and blur the lines between our lives and our online world. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Given all of this, what\u2019s the solution to the loneliness, depression, and feelings of low self-worth that social media is breeding?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Time to get real<\/b><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We\u2019re so caught up in our online worlds that we\u2019ve missed the forest through the trees:<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We live in a digital world, with an analog mindset. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We seem to have lost sight of the fact, if it ever occurred to us in the first place, that in the online world, it\u2019s our movie. It\u2019s our television show. We\u2019re scripting it, and if there are people out there who are watching and decide to attack us, we can write them out of the script. \u00a0We have the power to vote them off the island without having to worry about being called into the offices of some NBC or Netflix or even Facebook Live executive who is going to threaten to replace us with someone else. This is our movie. We <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">are<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> the stars. And absolutely no one can replace us. The part was written for us. In fact, we were born for it. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Who do you have to be? <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">You can\u2019t be Kylie Jenner. Sorry. That part has already been taken. Then again, you can be sure that there are times when even Kylie Jenner wishes that she wasn\u2019t Kylie Jenner. Like when she\u2019s having a bad hair day and stops off at a Starbuck\u2019s, where everyone sees her and captures her on their cellphone cameras. Not such a good day to be Kylie Jenner and there may be a minute or two when she wishes that <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">she<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> were someone else. Although, she can\u2019t be you. That part has already been taken, too. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Time for some perspective<\/b><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">While it\u2019s true that you can reach out to anyone globally, in reality, that \u2018you\u2019 is a curated version of yourself that you\u2019ve created. It\u2019s your online marketing tool, a persona who lives in a 2-1\/2\u201dx4-1\/2\u201d rectangle, where you pretty much can be whomever you\u2019d like, whenever you\u2019d like. In his new book, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Present-Shock-When-Everything-Happens\/dp\/1591844762\/douglrushk-20\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Present Shock<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, Douglas Rushkoff refers to <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Digiphreni<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">a, the ability for technology to allow us to<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">be in more than one place \u2013 and\/or self \u2013 at the same time. Everyone has his or her own storylines going. Everyone wants followers and likes \u2013 why else would we be posting? And be so particular about how we\u2019re presenting ourselves. According to <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.entrepreneur.com\/article\/318586\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Entrepreneu<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">r<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, most people take two to five photos before posting one, and one out of four people take more than seven minutes using filters and tweaking their photo. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Given all of the work that many of us are putting into this process, it\u2019s bad enough when we encounter people in the physical world who don\u2019t necessarily like us: it\u2019s harder, and often more depressing when it happens online with the invented self. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Our marketed or perfect selves. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And everyone has an online presence, which compounds the problem when you\u2019re competing for attention: it\u2019s hard to keep up, much less compete, with over a billion Joneses. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">While we might like to believe that living in a more connected world brings us all closer together, there is also a disconnect. We might literally have the world at our fingertips, but have apps really made, say, dating easier or less stressful? With the number of dating apps available, the choices can be overwhelming. We\u2019re still putting ourselves out there, but it\u2019s a curated us swiping left or right on other curated people. We might have more choices, but we\u2019re also competing against a much larger candidate pool. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>What exactly <\/b><b><i>is<\/i><\/b><b> social media? <\/b><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of my favorite definitions comes from Julien Meyer, host of <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/media.zencast.fm\/startup-financial-news\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">StartupFinancialNews,<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> a daily business news report that has reached #1 in the iTunes Finance Section. According to Julien, it\u2019s \u201ca group of people who shouldn\u2019t be giving advice, giving advice to a group of people who shouldn\u2019t be listening to their \u201cadvice.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Social Media: a discovery platform<\/b><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">While social media is a discovery platform, we seem to be missing or overlooking a critical part of discovery: because people tend to feel freer about expressing themselves online, followers, as well as posters, are revealing who they truly are. And unlike posters, followers don\u2019t always feel the need to curate themselves. There is that segment who feel that they can be meaner online than it would ever occur to them to be in real life. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pay attention. Don\u2019t invite those critics self back for your next installment. Especially if they\u2019re people you know personally and who call themselves your friends. \u00a0Online, we\u2019re all presenting our perfect selves. The problem is that some people are perfect assholes. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">While we all feel down from time to time &#8211; it\u2019s part of the human condition &#8211; our reactions to our social media personae tend to be amplified, probably in no small part due to the amount of time we spend on the platforms. Not every selfie, meme or gif we share is a masterpiece. Don\u2019t take it personally if they\u2019re not all shared. Your followers might have been busy that day. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Time to eliminate the drama<\/b><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Who do you have to be?<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> That\u2019s not the question we should be asking ourselves but rather, who are these people who feel that they have the right to attack? Or as my friend <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.shankman.com\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Peter Shankman<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, whom the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">New York Times<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> called \u201ca public relations all-star who knows everything about new media and then some\u201d once advised, \u201cIf you can\u2019t change the people around you, then change the people around you.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Social media gives you the freedom to not only curate your life. You can also curate your audience. After all, you\u2019re the one who\u2019s running the show. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp; <br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/credit-n.ru\/zaymyi-next.html\">http:\/\/credit-n.ru\/zaymyi-next.html<\/a> <br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/credit-n.ru\/zaymyi-next.html\">http:\/\/credit-n.ru\/zaymyi-next.html<\/a> <br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/credit-n.ru\/zaymyi-next.html\">http:\/\/credit-n.ru\/zaymyi-next.html<\/a> <br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/credit-n.ru\/zaymyi-next.html\">http:\/\/credit-n.ru\/zaymyi-next.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How to Create Your Perfect World on Social Media &nbsp; Question: how many different social media accounts do you have? How often do you check them? Or post, then check them, sometimes obsessively, to see how many likes, new followers, shares or comments you\u2019ve gotten,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":63336,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mind"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wellvyl.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wellvyl.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wellvyl.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wellvyl.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wellvyl.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63335"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/wellvyl.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69822,"href":"https:\/\/wellvyl.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63335\/revisions\/69822"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wellvyl.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wellvyl.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wellvyl.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wellvyl.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}