This course has opened my eyes to many aspects of how society uses digital media today. Through the modules, we learned about concepts such as self-representation and identity and ephemeral narratives which really stood out to me overall. I now find myself questioning the kind of content I consume online and also thinking more deeply about the modes in which I share my own posts.
With the self-representation and identity parts of the course, the module had me going back and thinking about my own online presence in depth. I rarely post on social media to avoid the perception and performance of it all that we have looked closely at through the readings. I average about one grid post a year and about one story post a month. I think this is because I see so many examples of people who share too much or overly curate their feeds, excluding anything from their posts that may not match their aesthetics. There is nothing wrong with treating your Instagram account like a moodboard, but I often find myself more drawn to posts that seem rooted in authenticity. During this semester, I found it interesting to see different perspectives and posts from the same night out between my friends and me. I will usually post nothing, my best friend may post one dimly lit photo of our drinks on the table at a restaurant, and another one of my friends will post a collage of everything we drank, ate, places we went, and photos we took with each other. All of these options come with a sort of audience perception, even though not posting at all. Viewers of these stories are given the ability to fill in the gaps with their own ideas of what happened on a night they were not even involved in. All of us are given different roles or identities within the group because of it. None of these truly reflect our real-world identities, yet we are suddenly confined to the information, or lack thereof, that we present to our followers. It also made me question whether we were going out for the memories and fun or for the Instagram posts at the end of the day, which can be a very blurry line in current times. I believe that a balance is necessary to some extent surrounding self-representation and identity on social media. Everyone is given the freedom to share however much they want of their lives, and it is important to keep this in mind when also viewing posts from others.
Ephemeral narratives have a new meaning to me now, after taking an in-depth look at them through the readings and seeing opinions in blog comments. Some people see ephemeral narratives as a way to be more authentic and in the moment, while others see it as another opportunity to look effortless, aesthetically pleasing, and put together in a more casual setting. The illusion of disappearance allows people to post things that would normally never make it online for a variety of reasons. From a personal standpoint, it may allow for more freedom in what one shares about their life without committing to every follower seeing it or living on their profile for long periods of time. I will take these findings with me and continue to apply them to my everyday life, always thinking deeper about what is being presented to me, or how I choose to present something, and how it could be perceived. These modules show that there are many perspectives to every theory or idea and that there truly is no definitive answer in terms of social media and its impacts on society today.
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