Is being unmediated what makes you more authentic? How do we remain authentic in a world where most of our experiences are now mediated?

My answer to the first question is no — to some extent. And to the second one, I’ll get to that.

In this day and age, I think being ‘authentic’ isn’t just about whether you’re going through life in an unmediated, no internet, no technology sort of way. It’s different now. Society has changed and so have you and everyone else. And the world is still changing. The definition of ‘authentic’ has evolved just like any other word in the dictionary can. Being authentic shouldn’t be defined by your technology use, but rather by your honesty to yourself and to others about who you are. I’ve got friends who aren’t on Facebook, Twitter, constantly looking at their phones and all the rest, but it doesn’t make them so much more authentic than myself or our other friends who are on social media platforms. As long as you remain honest on and offline, I think you’re just as authentic as a tree-grown, nature’s-own apple.

However (and this is where I begin conflicting everything I’ve just said), in some sense —just some — living in an unmediated way, where you’d rather interact with others face-to-face rather than through a screen, and you couldn’t really care less about ‘the you in the virtual world’ — I think that that is being slightly, just slightly more authentic. Because then, there’s less of a chance for you to bring the ‘virtual you’ into the ‘real world you’. I just think that sometimes people can get so caught up in the virtual world and the personas they develop into, that they start bringing that person they are online into reality without even realising it. Now I’m not saying that this goes for everyone who uses social media or that it’s a bad thing if people change (because it’s not — change can be good, not always, but it can be good). But you won’t really realise that you’re losing pieces of the real, authentic you, pieces that defined who you really are before you got caught up in posting that ‘Instagram-worthy, gotta find good lighting, show people that I go out, 1K likes, #ootd, #goals’ photo.

And now for that second question, it’s like what I said before — As long as you remain honest on and offline, I think you’re just as authentic as a tree-grown, nature’s-own apple. The continuously growing technological age has invented things to allow us to communicate with others around the world, so why waste it, right? I love being able to message or Skype with people online when we’re miles apart and catch up in each other’s lives. I like being able to read their Facebook statuses about how much they’re having a good time, or their tweets that summarises their experiences in 140 characters or less, or seeing their Instagram photos of the sights they’ve seen. Because the truth is, it’s always hard to get a good time to chat with times zones, or sometimes there isn’t any wifi or internet anywhere, or even if you do get a chance to talk or text, you can’t always say everything you wanted to say.

I think that it’s nice to inspire and be inspired by others around the globe, and be able to share parts of who we are just as others are sharing parts of who they are worldwide. But most importantly, I think that you should just be you, and so what if it doesn’t get you 100 likes or 2K retweets. If you take a step back with the real and raw you, the one who likes classical music and geeks out over Harry Potter — without that ‘(insert name) — feels like it’s time to turn up **insert martini glass emoji**’ status, or without that Valencia filter, and meet the person that you are through these mediated experiences that you go through, would you think they’re real?

I’m just going to leave that there for you think about. And I think that’s all I’m going to say about this for now because I just felt like I wrote an essay and you just read an essay.