Instalife
Globalisation and social media is punching you in the face. You may not have actually felt it, but it’s happening. Everything that happens online today is immediate and final, like accidentally using a permanent marker on a white board. As soon as it’s uploaded onto the internet, that’s it. See you later privacy, it’s up there for life.
I created my own Instagram account three weeks ago. Woah, Erin, slow down, a blog and Instagram account initiated within the same month? Get out of town.
But it’s true, and I am, like millions of others, absolutely hooked on this frivolous expansion to the function of my iPhone. Why do I insist on needing to see photographic evidence of the activities carried out by my friends, the minute that it happens? Because it’s what I’ve become accustomed to. I feel disconnected, even uncomfortable, if I don’t know what’s going on in their lives exactly when it happens. Boom. Social media. It’s horrific that we can’t manage to exist in a world where all aspects aren’t linked into a central network being, your community. Your own little space in which everything is connected and you’re aware of all aspects of change and disturbance as soon as they happen.
Insta-example.
This is my aunt’s cat, Colin.
If someone needs to contact me they can do it via three different email addresses, mobile phone, home phone (haven’t used it in over 3 years..), Facebook, Instagram, my blog, mail, or if it’s a special circumstance, face to face. I have all of these separate types of media accounts so that I am contactable by everyone in the different circles of my life. I have a specific group on facebook, and in my phone for school friends, university friends and college friends. I have three different email addresses, for university, work and a personal address. This is all so that people can be in contact with me 24/7 for any purpose you can think of.
For an hour I took note of how many times I checked my phone. It was 17 times. That’s almost once every three minutes. To be fair, my watch was broken and I was using it to keep track of the time. Even so, once every three minutes was astounding to me, I needed to know what was happening in the world around me and desperately checked for updates. Pow. Globalisation.
My life is very heavily influenced, and even controlled by technology. KO (I used to play tekken III on my playstation).