ON THE MORNING of Jan. 17, 2014, Madison Holleran awoke in her dorm room at the University of Pennsylvania. She had spent the previous night watching the movie The Parent Trap with her good friend Ingrid Hung. Madison went to class. She took a test. She told a few friends she would meet them later that night at the dining hall. She went to the Penn bookstore and bought gifts for her family.While she was there, her dad called. "Maddy, have you found a therapist down there yet?" he asked."No, but don't worry, Daddy, I'll find one," she told him.But she had no intention of finding one. In fact, she was, at that exact moment, buying the items she would leave for her family at the top of a parking garage. Godiva chocolates for her dad. Two necklaces for her mom. Gingersnaps for her grandparents, who always had those cookies in their home. Outfits for her nephew, Hayes, who had been born two weeks earlier. The Happiness Project for Ingrid, with a note scribbled inside. And a picture of herself as a young kid, holding a tennis racket. Over winter break she had told her dad that she was borrowing that picture, that she needed it for something.She didn't say what.Then, on the evening of Jan. 17, just after dusk settled on the city, Madison took a running leap off the ninth level of a parking garage in downtown Philadelphia.She was 19 years old.
Talking about suicide is never a pleasant thing to do, especially when it is a teenager or a young adult who takes their life, because you can not help but think about the potential that will never be realized or the joy and happiness they could have provided. Pleasant or not, depression, suicide, and mental health in general needs to become a much larger topic in the National and even Global conversation. Unfortunately I have not done any research recently, otherwise this is probably where I would cite some statistics, but I can only speculate and discuss what I believe is happening to the Social Media Generation.
Nobody can deny that social media has had an incredible impact in our daily lives. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and even Reddit has made sharing ideas, beliefs, and information almost instantaneous, and I think this year has proved that point time and time again. From the attacks in Paris to the earthquake in Nepal as well as the multiple mass shootings and racial tension in the United States. details and information were either being streamed or tweeted and reported on by the second. It is amazing to be able to watch things unfold as they happen in a country on the other side of the world, but there is a darker side to social media, when you shift your focus from the happenings of the world to the mundane events of every day life.
Everyone is guilty of it and it is not necessarily a bad thing, it is just the way social media is used, no one likes to post things that may make someone feel bad especially on platforms where you mostly interact with friends and family like Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook. For the most part it is harmless, you simply want to spread happiness and share your good times with the people that you love, but when that is all you post it is a misrepresentation of your real life. It is a facade, a flawless veneer that is hiding all the negative and worst times underneath. It is unfortunate but I feel like today's youth who are constantly checking and rechecking all of their social media apps see nothing but fun and happiness coming from their friends and family and it is not real life, but it is, what is being perceived. They look at their friends who they may have graduated high school with and see nothing but promotions, new material things, parties, significant others, and starting new families and can not help but feel like maybe they are not keeping up. It causes a lot of anxiety and worry about what they might be doing wrong, and once that anxiety takes hold it starts to fester.
So, not only does social media help to perpetuate the unreal ideal of ones life and true state of mind but it can help to camouflage your own insecurities. In the story of Madison, one day her mother saw a picture her daughter had posted on Instagram and said "You look so happy at that party." and Maddy replied "Its just a picture." the saying goes a picture is worth a thousand words, but those words do not necessarily have to be true. From the outside looking in, Madison seemed like she was living the perfect life, she excelled at school and every sport she played, had been offered multiple scholarships for soccer and track, and ended up a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania where she took the track scholarship. Still with all of these things going for her, she just was not happy. I am sure all of her friends and family wish they would have done more, but how could they have known they needed to do something? On the outside and through her Instagram she was a normal teenage girl who was enjoying life, even posting a beautiful Instagram photo of trees lit up the night of her suicide. Through the lens of social media everyone seems happy but that is not realistic, life is full of highs and lows. When people are comparing their behind the scenes to everyone else's highlight reels it creates an unbalanced expectation of how life should be experienced.
I am gonna end this blog post with a little snippet of an earlier Facebook post where I posted the link to the article and wrote a short paragraph. Writing that, actually inspired me to kind of elaborate here and sort of get back to writing in general. Sometimes I really nail an idea in my head and it comes out very well in text form, I feel like I need get my voice and ideas out more, instead of keeping them locked away in my head.
Social media helps to perpetuate the skewed perception of other people's life's compared to your own. Almost everyone filters out the most negative things about their self and only post what they want people to believe their life is like, yet fail to see or understand that everyone else is doing the same thing and instead take things on social media at face value. So remember, everyone is dealing with shit underneath the surface and social media is just a lens that people want you to see their life through. It's ok to not be ok and there is always someone there for you whether it be friends, family, or some stranger on the Internet who will understand you when things seem hopeless.
Well until next time...
Peace ☮
