For years the internet has been a place for people to express their opinions, especially now with the copious amount of social media sites springing into popularity. I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but the content posted by the 1.19 billion (and counting) users of Facebook alone has transformed over the last decade. Remember the rush of posting a single status? Or how purposeful you felt when everyone would comment on the "Note" you just wrote, even if it was only a survey.
Surveys, guys. Ah, life was so simple then.
Social media means way more than just another way to keep in touch with your friends across the nation. Through generations of science and Facebook evolution, the ability to share the clutter of the internet and what we see on our News Feeds has certainly grown.
2008: The year of video uploading and sharing.
2010: All of those memes and tumblr gifs.
2011: That brief moment in time when you could create your own polls, remember that?
2013: Ecards, Buzzfeed lists, BITSTRIPS...
I don't think I'll ever get tired of all of the Grumpy Cat memes, and I'm pretty sure I click on every Buzzfeed of concept art submitted by talented people portraying Disney Princesses as goth, hipster, old ladies, whatever the case may be. Bitstrips were cute at first, but the trend appears to be dying down a bit and, I'll admit, I'm not complaining. Sorry, friends.
Now it's 2014, and what I AM delighted to see when I'm scrolling down into the infinity that is "load more" are a stream of informative and thought provoking pieces of writing. Instead of reading the Newspaper in the morning I log into Facebook because my News Feed is actually feeding me real news. I see writings from professional columnists at The New York Times to the insightful minds of everyday people at websites like HelloGiggles, and ThoughtCatalog. The days of "at the gym" statuses are behind us and have been replaced by before and after pictures of my friends in their bathing suits followed by #fitspiration or #getswole.
On a daily basis I usually have three to six windows open on my browser, each with about five to ten tabs across the top supplying an article or video I plan on getting to. What I've really observed that is coming up more and more often on the internet is the discussion of Feminism and Gender Equality; issues I've never really had concerns about or even cared to educate myself on up until now, which means everything that is being spread like wildfire in media regarding Feminism and Gender Equality is working. You've caught my attention, and I'm glad you have!
The reason I mention this is because I'm proud that I, among others, am keeping up to date and informing myself on current events and discussions. I've always been a pretty open person to the interests of others, and try to leave very small room for judgement, so I read as much as I can.
And eventually, it all starts to feel like information overload.
I read one opinion over here, and another over there about things I could never know about without studying the subject in college. Research articles with headlines like "New Study Shows We're Breathing Too Much Air". What?! **I just want to clarify that I made that up for demonstration, unless anyone proves me wrong with an actual study I don't know about.** Then there are those posts about the most extravagant marriage proposals EVER and success stories that have gone viral, reminding me about the beauty in the gift of life while also making me incredibly depressed that I am not doing something so meaningful.
I'm 20 years old, and I'm still very self-conscious. I predict that for most of my adult life I will remain self-conscious because hormones like to kick you in the head for no reason. I'm thankful the internet is there to help me get input about a problem, and I'm thankful that there are people out there who have been through the same problem when I thought I was the only one who would Google something like "best way to put on deodorant without getting it on your clothes" and will give feedback about how to solve it.
We live in an age of immediate answers through 2-Dimensional devices because taking the time to seek answers in ourselves through actual life experience is slow, and often unbearably lonely. Why do that when everything is accessible at the click of a mouse? But these articles are popping up everywhere, and I hate feeling as though I need to be told on a daily basis what is wrong with me and other women and how to fix it, mainly because I still feel the need to find out.
The human species has the ability to form strong opinions and voice them, which separates us from other animals. It's a very special thing, I'm aware of that, and I really do like reading original writings created by people my age.
But just to get things off my chest, article binging is real, my eyes hurt, and quite frankly I'm not getting anything done. The irony is that in writing this I am contributing yet another article to this cesspool.
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