It reminded me of the time a bunch of friends and I went out, and instead of hanging out with the rest of us, a couple spent most of the time logging into Facebook every five minutes, looking at pictures of people they barely even knew. The funny thing is they actually updated their status about how much ‘fun’ they were having. Righto...
Which makes me wonder, when people change their status to express how they’re having the time of their lives at this or that festival, this or that party, this or that dinner – are they really just ignoring their friends to update their acquaintances?
Like when people have a photo album dedicated to the attendance of a particular concert, and all there is are 187 luvos taken before the actual thing.
And what about people with albums titled this or that birthday party and all they have to show for it are 981 photos that all look the same – photos of themselves and a few others in front of a drive way when the real party was going on inside.
Or when people pay hundreds of dollars in tickets and new outfits to go to this or that music festival – and all that’s dished up is 28789473487 pictures spread across numerous albums – pictures taken away from the stage, away from the music they supposedly love.
“The perfect example is people who take millions of travel photos and you wonder whether they saw anything or just took pictures” – Marie Claire magazine
There’s a mentality that pictures and status updates somehow quantify experiences into something greater than the sum of its parts; and that this is further substantiated by the number of comments it can attract.
Without something tangible to publish in the online world, how many people know I went out to dinner with my old work mates, that afterwards we had ice cream and girly chats over a harbour view? How many people know I went out with my new work mates, that we had a barbeque and went bush walking afterwards? You wont know about it through Facebook, but I sure had fun.
There’s a certain point where technology stops recording precious moments and replaces them instead. A lot of people are guilty of it. The rest are enjoying them selves way too much to prove it to the rest of the world through self-documentation.
Love, Noeline
xox
This rings so true!
ReplyDeletecause facebook is awesome! haha
ReplyDeletei agree though ... stop changing ur status and uploading pictures!
Ahh the implications of social networking. It seems as though it definitely has taken over everything. The irony is that its purpose is to encourage social interaction whereas, your observation implies it is indeed hindering it. I've noticed people are so consumed with the phenomena that is Facebook, that it has become a topic for dinner conversation (of all ages) at recent gatherings I have been to. It's become somewhat of an ellipse, no matter what topic your conversation starts off with it always comes back to Facebook.
ReplyDeleteAlso, in regards to self-documentation at said events; there's nothing more disappointing than hearing of people going to festivals not knowing who's on the lineup. But rather are there for the scene; therefore, inadvertently causing people who actually want to go for the music to miss out on tickets.
Just my two cents x