During my time spent alone in quarantine, I feel like I habe constantly been online. From Instagram, to facetime, to google docs, my world has become more virtual than ever. In this new virtual life that I have been living over the past four weeks, I have also started to use social media in more ways than one. While I typically use Instagram to check out photos of my friends, it has recently become one of my primary outlets for socializing, news consumption, inspiration, and comedy. While I used to separate my news feed from my social feed, they have collided into one through the use of Instagram.
Throughout these past weeks, Instagram has been my source of comedy, social security, and stories. For example, every meme account I follow has seemed to add some comic relief to the current state of the world. Although satirical, these memes feel relatable and help me to remember that we are all lonely together.
Instagram has also helped me to stay connected to friends and family. Through the direct message function, I communicate with others by sending/receiving news, memes, photos, etc. When I send/reciceve messages on Instagram, there is almost a more special connection to the people that I am communicating with because I know they are watching or viewing the same crap as I am. Again, this reminds me of how we are all lonely together.
One of my favorite ways that Instagram has been helpful during these weeks is through motivational stories. Although hard news is always important to pay attention to, I find myself always more intrigued with the personal stories about different people during this era. By hearing about the COVID-19 survior, seeing nurses be superheros, or watching a family singing Happy Birthday to their grandfather through a window, I am more able to block out the negative views of the world’s current situation and see the amazing things that people are doing to help and lift eachother.
Although over consumption typically leaves me feeling insecure, unmotivated, or lonely, my consumption of media over these past few weeks has almost felt like a saving grace. I think I feel this way because of the type of media that I am consuming. Instead of looking for negative things, I have restircted myself from the hard news, and let myself see my friends, laugh a little, and read uplifiting stories. While I still find importance in the education surrounding COVID-19, I find that I keep myself in a happier state of mind when I only allow myself to read the reality of this sitaution for a certian amount of time. While different forms of media affect different types of people, I believe that there is a real importance in finding out how we each react to different things, espically in such hard times.
WHO WE ARE 