»By Chelsea leonard
Staff Writer
From across the arena, you’ve spotted her. She’s impossible to miss, and her face is plastered on every poster, and T-shirt of thousands of screaming fans.
Taylor Swift says, “Hello, Nashville,” but all you can see are the 7,000 phones raised in the air, hell-bent on getting the perfect shot of her and each one of them ready to post the best photo of the night on Instagram, as quickly as possible.
Instagram receives 1.2 billion likes and has 55 million photos shared every day, according to Instagram’s press page.
There are more than 75 million people on Instagram daily, according to a study done by verge.com.
What happens to the people viewing Taylor through their phone screens, versus those who use their own eyes?
They miss out.
Concerts, parties and trips to the grocery store are now spectacles to broadcast.
If a girl got her nails done or ordered a drink at Starbucks but did not post it on Instagram, did it really happen?
We are all competing be the wittiest, the sexiest, the one to receive the most “likes.”
“It makes people feel inadequate or unpopular if they don’t get a certain amount of likes,” said junior medical lab science major, Haleigh Petty.
It gives followers a false perception of reality.
Instagram users post photos selectively, using only what makes them seem the most attractive.
Appearance is deceptive. People can easily manipulate an image in order to portray the message they want to send out.
Most often, this message is, “Look at how awesome I am” or, “Look how cool my life is.”
“It makes my life feel less important than someone who has more “likes” and more followers,” Petty said.
Social media has warped our society into believing that getting “likes” on a photo is more necessary than being liked for saying kind words to someone or lending a hand to someone in need.
We are constantly searching for the approval of others and are disappointed when the party photo from last weekend only gets 11 likes. “Someone can get over 50 likes for [posting] a plate of food, and when I post something meaningful to me, it only gets five or six,” Petty said.
A person’s worth is not determined by how many people viewed his or her photo. “Likes” do not take away from the sincerity or artistic value, nor do they add any.
According to MediaBistro.com, 70 percent of Instagram users log in at least once a day.
This is not just a digital scrapbook; Instagram is an addiction for those who cannot accept being present in reality. It is not enough to have a great time out with friends or to enjoy a cup of coffee alone.
We’ve become so concerned with capturing a moment forever, we do not realize we are interfering with letting events naturally happen.
An organic moment is ruined by a bright flash, a tacky filter and a hashtag.
Our society has developed a need to document every breath; this habit needs to die hand-in-hand with rampant social media use. TAS

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