TMI, At All Times: 5 Ways Oversharing Has Ruined Generation-Y
In my final semester of engineering, it was mandatory for everyone to do a group project on a topic of choice. After careful research, we finally found our topic.
It had to do with keeping your location secure and accessible only to your friends when you share it on any social media app, as privacy is hugely compromised these days.
This got me thinking; we are a generation with access to pretty much anything and everything, which also includes the lives of other people. This has ruined us in ways we will never get over.
Here are a few reasons this has affected us in the wrong way:
1. Constantly feeling bad about your life
You come back home extremely tired, and all you can think of is going to bed. But, your phone screen calls out to you with a new notification on Facebook.
You decide, yeah, I have a few minutes to check Facebook. The minutes turn into an hour.
As you scroll down instantly regretting your decision, you see all the engagement pictures, and some of your friends are even having babies. Some of them are traveling the world.
How perfect do their lives look? There you are, single and dealing with your own complicated sh*t
How you wish you could throw that phone into a fire.
2. Making other people feel bad about their lives
So, while you are checking out all the happily married/engaged couples and secretly hoping for your turn, you also upload pictures of that amazing all-girls trip you took last weekend.
And, the same happily married/engaged person looks at your post wondering if he or she is missing out on something and made the right choice. Was it too soon to get hitched?
What we don't realize is, it's a vicious cycle that continues and never seems to end.
Well, the grass is always greener on the other side.
3. Feeling guilty about not going out enough
So your friends are sending you countless Snapchats.
They are at the new "it" place in town and frankly, you don't really understand what the fuss is all about.
But you are tempted, and the next weekend, when all you want to do is spend the next two days in pajamas, you dress up like it's nobody's business and go check out this new place everyone is going gaga over.
Not everybody does this, but some of us surely are guilty.
It doesn't necessarily have to do with social media, but we all have been forced to go out when we least wanted to.
4. Stalking to the point of no return
So you recently broke up and your ex seems to be moving on pretty fast. How do you know?
His Instagram says so. You see his pictures with new arm candy, and it flips on the crazy switch in you.
What do you do next? Stalk the living hell out of this new person. By the end of it, you know the names of his or her siblings like the back of your hand.
Where does this get you? Most likely, back to feeling pathetic again (like I said, it's a vicious cycle).
5. Mindlessly following trends
So you see everyone is obsessed with this new thing about some dress that is supposed to be blue and black or white and gold, something like that.
It keeps popping up on your newsfeed, so what do you do? Google the dress.
Stare at it for the next 20 minutes, and ignore the 20-page research paper you have due tomorrow.
It's clearly white and gold, right? Next thing you know, you join an online debate group, discussing the color of this ugly dress.
You still don't know why it is important, but hey, it's the current obsession.
We live in a world of over-sharing. Don't get me wrong; it's great.
We are a privileged generation and we get to experience technology like never before.
We are connected in ways designed to make everything easy, but nothing great comes without a few setbacks.
We are a generation that photographs food before eating and makes a meme out of almost everything.
It's fun, but when you think about it, do we know what 100 percent privacy feels like? Do we realize we are slaves to technology? Our lifestyle is so incomplete without it.
However, technology is also a blessing that gives us so much more than what it probably takes away.
You can't imagine your life without it, but its success all depends on how you choose to use it.
