Something about Social Media that Can Mess with your Head.

Social media is part of our daily lives, sadly. It has been part of our daily lives so much that it has become a habit.

My daily habit consists of checking: Instagram, then Twitter, then Facebook and then Snapchat. Sometimes, I don’t even notice that I’m going from one app (social media) to another. It has become a routine to check all these different social media and check it throughout the day.

And by checking social media all the time, it can begin to mess with your mind. At 26 years old, I always see a lot of people my age: getting married,  having babies and having long-term relationships. I am not ready for that stage of my life right now. And seeing old classmates or people my age taking the next stage in life can make me feel like I’m “behind” in life and that everyone else is being “successful” and that I’m stuck in my phase in life.

Social media is fake in a way.

I feel like everyone posts all the positives in their lives & “show off” in a way. I’m not going to lie, I have done this before. No one really posts about their struggles or really express their feelings as much as they post their celebrations and positive aspects of their lives.

They will post that they: got a new job, hanging out with friends, are in a relationship, got engaged & married, when they have children, every cute little thing that their children do. They will post that they are eating at a cool “instagram-worthy” restaurant and post a photo of their food or drink. They will post their “mcm” or “wcw” to declare their love for their significant other, family members or friends.

There are lot of posts about showing how great their lives are. I am one of those people and I will admit it.

Initially, I liked Instagram because it provided a platform for me to put my photography on social media in a way that no one can steal my photos easily. I had trouble in the past with people taking my photos and claiming that it was there photographs.

But, I fell into that trap of posting the “amazing life” that I have. Looking at my Instagram right now, I have photos from my trip to Europe, from my trip to Disney World, my Dean’s list recognition letters, my Disney birthday trips, my graduation and my degree. There are also musicals that I watched and the many Disneyland trips I have been to.

But along with all those great memories from my life. I have posted ALOT ALOT of my view when I was in school. It was always a photo at Starbucks, with my coffee, my Macbook or my school notes.

It looks like my current view typing this right now:

I posted a lot of me, my coffee and my studying to show that I am a busy person and that my life (during that time) was only focused on school. I would always put captions such as “6:30AM-6PM days”. Or “9 classes. 3 weeks of finals” Or ” work + school + coffee” .

Those photos are just a snapshot of my daily life and that it was not all sunshine and lollipops. I would finely show how exhausted I was with those photos and captions. I didn’t always state how exhausting and stressful my life was, but also I didn’t show all the great things that were happening in my life.

Because my life is not always that great.

That’s where stigma comes in… we always see everyone’s greatest accomplishments and their celebrations. And if we post things about our struggles in our lives, not a lot of people will take notice of it or even care.

If I were to post something on Instagram that stated that I was having a bad day and struggling with my depression. I’m pretty sure that no one will even care or reach out to me.

For example, my instagram post about “world mental health day” got only 10 likes in comparison to my instagram post one week later with a photo of me and my friend at disneyland which got 18 likes.

Social media messes with my head a lot. & I let it affect me at times.

I get really upset when I see people post on a daily basis about the wonderful places they go to and the many people they hang out on a daily basis. Because my life is nothing compared to what I see on social media.

And I let it affect me. I know that I shouldn’t but I do.

Social media can mess you up.

-Mel

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Mind maps.

As stated in my “ART EXPRESSIONS” post, I don’t have the words to express my feelings.

I still can’t find the words to express the contents that are contained in my mind.

So I decided to create a mind map that visually express what is going on in my mind.

And I’m going to make it into a project.

Whenever I have days like today, when I cannot express my feelings into words, I will visually display how my mind looks.

Today (November 4, 2015):

My mind map looks like this.

There are a lot of thoughts (buildings) in my mind today. Like a map: the space in between the buildings are roads. The roads in my mind map represent how quickly my thoughts go from one to another. The narrow the “road”, the faster the thoughts move. The road is narrow today.

Some of the thoughts are colored. These colored thoughts are the ones that reappear in my mind often. There are plenty of thoughts keep on reappearing today.

I can’t find the words that describe each building, the colored buildings or the narrow roads. But, I can express that my mind is busy and constantly going from one thought to another.

-Mel