I recently had an eye-opening conversation with one of my close friends while we sat on the grassy patch in the middle of a neighborhood circle. I was sharing that I felt like I was letting myself down because I wasn't working hard enough, achieving enough of my goals, and not spending enough time feeling productive throughout my days.
My friend told me that frankly– I was letting the modern (and capitalistic) belief that a person's value is based on how much they "contribute" to society effect my self worth, and reminded me that all human beings are born with innate value, and they contribute enough to society just by being themselves.
When I was watching Generation Like, I felt dismal, because I so badly wanted to tell each of these kids that their self worth is not based on the attention they do or do not receive online, or what kind of contribution they make to the vast black hole that is the internet. Whether or not Rachel gets 400 likes on her new profile picture, and Michael only gets 8, their innate value as human beings stays the same and is innumerable. You have value because you simply exist.
This blog post has gone a bit meta, but my thoughts have shifted since my friend told me that my value is never dependent on what others think of me, how much I am contributing, even how much more I think I could be contributing. We all simply enter and leave this world with value. It's all a rat race, and social media is the same, trying to trap you and make you convince yourself that this filter, this caption, x amount of likes, will get you out of the race.
So have social media, stay on the internet, (not really an option in today's world anyways) but sitting around in a group scheming up ways to get more likes (on a picture of your face nonetheless!) cant be good for you.
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