SEVECEN Sayı: 28 - 2019

264 İpek ALTUNYURT The World of Bests China. What a wonderful place. My dream destination since I watched the movie called Mulan. I saw lot of photos, videos about China. I would love to go there, meet different people, join festivals, see The Great Wall of China and do many other fun activities. If I had a chance to go there, I would be very happy, wouldn’t I? What if China isn’t as wonderful as I’ve imagined? What if all it has is boring museums, rude people, crowded and dirty streets? What would I feel like if I couldn’t find anything to eat in China? I would feel very disappointed and miserable. I would buy a plane ticket right away and return back to my house. Not just because my trip would be terrible but because I wouldn’t be able to post a cute picture on Social Media. The highlights are what people want others to see. The highlight reel is a collection of the best and brightest moments. Social media is our personal highlight reel. We always post our best photos, best memories, best views. The problem is real life doesn’t just contain best things. We know this because we face so many problems during our life but while we are looking at our friend’s photos we seem to forget that easily. As Steven Furtick said “We struggle with insecurity because we compare our behind the scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel.” We feel unlucky, sad, and jealous for something that doesn’t even reflect the reality. Yes, it was happening before Social Media but now it happens much more than it used to. A perfect daily life example of myself, when I see my friend’s cute photo of herself lying on the beach, watching the sunset while I’m staying at home watching TV, I envy her and feel so bored. Before looking at those photos I am not bored at all. Looking at what people do makes us feel negative because we automatically compare ourselves with them. We forget that we also go to other places some other time. At that moment we just think that person is luckier, richer than us. However it’s just a highlight like others... In Social Media these likes, comments have become a sign that is used to attribute value to something. This is also another form of “The Economy of Attention”. If you give a like to something, it becomes more valuable. If you use this method in economy to sell things it is okay, but in Social Media we are the ones who are treated like products. We delete our photos if we don’t get to many likes because we desperately want to be liked by others. That’s why we share our bests all the time. We try to run away from the dark side of the reality -our behind the scenes-. Well, whatever you do you can’t change your nose in the real life by face tuning it, can you? Above all, the main problem is “trust”. You can’t possibly trust someone you meet online. Maybe the girl you are texting is not a girl or that person doesn’t exist at all. How can you be sure? There are millions of fake profiles people use to trick others or talk to someone they normally can’t dare to. Fake profiles hide them like a mask and provide them a fake courage. Others use fake profiles to manipulate others by using “The Economy of Attention” as I mentioned before. The main idea is they dare to do things they normally can’t. They lie to themselves by pretending to be someone else. Those people are usually the ones who are treated badly and are excluded from the society. The ones who are scared to bear the consequences of their actions… They are so weak to fight back so they choose to hide. They take shelter in Social Media. When they wear that mask they feel powerful and brave but that prevents them to see the truth. Who they pretend to be by wearing that mask doesn’t reflect who truly they are. These are the reasons why Social Media doesn’t reflect the reality.