Sunday, 27 November 2016

Week 5 [ 28.11-04.12] Does our happiness depend on the number of 'likes' below our photo or post?



Nowadays social media portals and blogs are becoming more and more popular. It is a great way to share an opinion about passions, interests with others. Blogs are especially famous among young people;  they are some kind of a diary.

When I was a teenager I wrote a diary. I put my thoughts, memories and everything what happened to me that day in it. I wrote about problems and solutions to them. But I did  everything to keep my diary in secret and I did not want anybody to read it. I kept it in a safe and I did not allow anyone to be interested in reading it,  including my family and friends. When only I thought about a situation when somebody could read it, I felt scared. I remember that all my friends wrote them and they kept them in secret. Why do people share their emotions and thoughts today? Doesn’t it mean that our life is becoming more predictable and available for everyone?

I am sure that you have at least one friend who shares a lot of content on the Facebook wall , including tones of photos of food stuff, places, complaints about politics or just bragging. In my opinion people for ages have been willing to share their lives. Who was not tired after scrolling twenty albums with photos during his/her first visit at the partner’s home. There is a small difference between sharing a physical album that is hidden in a shelve instead of sharing photos on the Internet where everything stays once it was published. Showing others where we are currently, what we wear, what type of cosmetics we use or what film we will watch at the cinema – all these things are is addictive, especially when we want to stay in the center of attention.

There is one question – is this real life of this person? In the virtual world we have a chance to create  a “better” version of ourselves. We brag and share everything, we collect “likes,”  like they were so important and valuable. If  our everyday life is totally average, 200 “likes” below a post are important, don’t you think? We increase our self-esteem. Unfortunately we do not realize that it can have an impact in the future. Nowadays it is something normal that employers check potential candidates on the Internet, before an official interview. How many people did not pass it because of photos from some parties? Do parents think about what their child will tell in the future when he or she sees a photo of himself tagged: “First bath of our daughter”? This daughter can become a famous politician in the future and for sure she will not be happy with this publication.

My message is presented in the short video below:



I encourage you to watch it. :)
And please, answer the questions presented.




26 comments:

  1. Your video is a great summary of the present time. Stupidly and constantly begging for likes and attention. Really... How it sometimes everything looks like, it's just... I don't know what to say for it all.
    For me, that was just embarrassing. But for most people, it is now the largest meaning of life.

    http://litosci.pl/photo/64834/photo.jpg :)

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    1. Hahaha, the link you provided is a great example of how people are stupid on the Internet. The worst thing is that they do not realize that these photos are just embarrassing.

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  3. Sharing the our life is not a bad thing, provided that it gets a wisely and responsibly. This is an individual matter of each person, but nowadays everyone wants to protect their privacy, but many of us forget that we ourselves just share it to others. I believe that the transfer of its entire day to social networking sites characterized by people who need approval and attention. In my opinion, social networks should serve mainly to communicate with friends and not to share his entire life in the network, often forgetting at the same time about real life ...

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    1. I agree with you. I also think that this applies to people who want to be in this way appreciating, who need attention and interest, but in most cases this has the opposite effect.

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  4. I try not to use social networking sites. For me it is a waste of time. I have a picture on facebook from 4 years ago and few people would recognize me from it. There I have long hair and I do not have glasses.
    But sometimes I think about writing technology tweets.
    The video is for me quite powerful. Thanks for it - tweeter can wait :)

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    1. I forgot to write that I have a friend with whom I worked. He wrote 50 thousand tweets within four years. He wrote among others, how lousy job he has :)

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    2. I also have such friends, but in such situations I just block notifications about new posts created by them :)

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  5. It's a part of a much more universal issue of starving for attention and feeling inferior. It's just that the social media have enabled people to act based on this feelings in a new way. I don't think it's going to stop or change any time soon, people have always been that way.

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    1. Unfortunately, you're right. I do not think that people's behavior can be changed. It seems to me that it will only get worse.

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  7. I thnik the situation that You described above is risky and frustrating especially for teenagers which are growing up in front of their computers. They're not able to measure consciously the distance between life promoted in the social media and its authentic value. We should stand back, behave cautiously and take care of the younger generation.

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  8. It's just another trend, which was hyping for few last years.. people got grazy about all this social media boom. So probably they will start to turn around from it in a while. Maybe they will choose to use more private, more secure ways to communicate and share with their friends. I think it may already have started.

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  9. I have colleague from my work who has over 50 years old and he has to divide his meals, trips or others stupid situation shows on facebook figured almost 2 houndred photos! It's terrible, because for me It's form of no approval ourself in real life and gratification his
    failures. I asked him: why you drop these all photos for people? And the most scared answer: Because I have to show everybody and angry them where I was...
    I don't understand people who shared their intimate photos with everybody and comment others only for appreciate. In real life I get only anniversary wishes from some closest to me people because on facebook I set wrong date of birth and I needn't anything else.

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  10. I think that today's teenagers are more lonely. Many people not have real friend and they not can tell about your emotions. Blog and other social profile are great solution for needs to share any problems. On the other hand many people think that Internet are good place for to impress people and they want to shine, want to be a local star.

    In my opinion this topic is a big psyhological generation problem. We do not know how speak about emotions in face to face conversation.

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    1. It is true. it is easier for us to talk about our emotions in a virtual world. It's easier to talk down to people, which we donot know, so it is also helpful for shy people. However, it will not replace real conversations and real emotions.

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  11. I'm really disgruntled about this phenomenon. Most of people around me, have got two lifes: real and virtual. Nobody wants to meet up for a drink or coffee to talk each other, they prefer messenger. Sometimes, I really want to throw away my cellphone, and disable facebook account. But i can't, unfortunately not in my proffesion...

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  12. I think creating fake and "improved" version of oneself in the Internet is a bad thing. I an not active user of social media and recently deactivated my Facebook account. I don't find it anything worth my time. I would rather spend time with real people. I believe that living a life of "Internet Celebrity" is the act of satisfying human vanity. I like the comparison that to be popular on Instagram is like to be rich in Monopoly :)

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    1. great comparison. It's exactly the same situation, untrue and unrealistic. The only difference is that winning the monopoly will not have any negative effects :)

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  13. This video brings to my mind a history of one of ‘instagram models’. Girl getting thousands of likes under her photos on which she looks attractive. Afterwards she revels the fact that all of those pictures are not taken by accident. They required a lot of work and sacrifices in order to achieve certain level of popularity. And in the end she comes to conclusion that it wasn’t worth it…. I strongly recommend to at least take a look at it:

    http://elitedaily.com/social-news/former-model-reveals-truth-fake-instagram/1268924/

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  14. Great video. I can't understand this type of being. For me my life is the most important thing. When I see other people who are staring at the screen and only "clickin likes" photos of others I'm disappointed. I think it's kind of escape from theirs lifes and problems to someone other life. It's easier way, but not change anything.

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  15. I think the problem is that we live more online, than in real life. We feel better, when somebody is interesting about our lives- so we put more and more social media content of our lifestyle. We try found more interests-we think that can help us with self-assessment. So, in my opinion the only solution is to try to accept ourself.

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  16. It is strange that for some people life have so important connection to some social network sites. For me this kind of sites are mostly entertaining, but sometimes they may became helpful beacuse I am a member of some professional groups related to my hobbies and my job. We can find some people who are addicted to these Internet sites, they are sharing every information with everyone. This is so unreal, because in life there are more important things. I hope that this trend will disappear in the future.

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    1. Exactly. We should use social networking sites to share our passions, learning, exchange of professional experience and advice, not to build our popularity by throwing false pictures. It seems to me that this was the main aim of creation of such portals. Fortunately, there are people who can use them correctly.

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  17. I dont really use social media the way others do, I do ocasionally post or like someones photo or status, but I am more of a passive user, I do not post my own photos and statuses, mainly because do not feel a need to do that. My friends know about my stuff and whats going on with me because we meet often and this is how I think relationships with other people should look like. Plus your video shows how fake some of those photos people post are.

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    1. Im doing the same. I occasionally throw some new pictures, but mostly I use social media just to communicate with friends or read reviews about a company or about a product.

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