Nothing has shaped popular culture more than social media. Social media has changed the way we communicate. It has generated the selfie phenomenon and has also become a means of projecting a version of the person we wish to be, rather than who we really are, out to the world. A growing number of individuals compete against each other on social platforms for followers, likes, retweets and favorites.
People crave recognition and dream of being popular. Narcissism seems to be on the rise. Have smartphones and social media spawned a self-obsessed generation? Donna Freitas does not believe so. Based on a large-scale survey and interviews with students in 13 college campuses in the US, she found that young people are mainly concerned with being happy but are under constant pressure to look perfect online. In other words, they are expected to give the impression that they are always happy, successful and full of energy.
“The happiness effect: How social media is driving a generation to appear perfect at any cost” sheds light on the consequences of the communications revolution that confronts us. The author shares many stories that are “the heart and soul of this book,” according to the author herself. One of the first stories we read is about a woman named Emma. Emma complains that people take pictures, do things and go places for the reaction that they are going to get on Instagram or Facebook. She admits that it is tiring being one way in public and acting differently in private, however, she believes “everyone is like that.”
Although the press has frequently slammed millennials for supposedly being narcissistic, the author believes that the world of social media is a far less scary place than the press would have us believe. “The young adults with whom I spoke are as smart and thoughtful as ever. They are doing their best to navigate a dimension or culture so new and different and so pervasive that it sets their generation apart,” Freitas wrote.
Freitas noticed that in all the campuses surveyed — despite their geographic, ethnic and socio-economic differences — 73 percent of students are preoccupied with appearing happy. “Adolescents learn early how important it is to everyone around them that they polish their online profiles to promote their accomplishments, popularity and general well-being. They practice this nearly constantly in their online lives and this has a tremendous effect on them emotionally, in their relationships and in their behavior on social media. For better or worse, students are becoming masters of appearing happy, at significant cost,” Freitas wrote.
College students are very much aware that they have to create an image and entertain a vast audience. However, people using social media soon find out that they cannot please everyone — they have different audiences. “Because of social media, we are becoming master manipulators, constant performers, and no one is better at these endeavors than young adults because they are learning earlier and earlier that these skills are central to success, either social or professional,” Freitas wrote.
Selfies, in particular, play a key role in defining one’s online image. Some students believe that the “photo culture” we see online is also used for professional purposes, however. If you consider your name to be a brand, a selfie or photograph becomes a powerful means by which you can promote yourself. An account becomes a marketing tool and a growing number of users are aware of the advantages of “professionaliz(ing)” online accounts. The image one curates on social media can eventually be used to create one’s own business online. Freitas underlines the extra burden women have to bear, saying: “Young women… not only must live up to expectations around professionalism and image building, but also must look good doing it.”
Selfies are often meant to express the fun we are having but the pressure to look happy at all costs reveals an alarming discrepancy between how we truly feel and how we want to be perceived online. A sense of longing for anonymity explains the phenomenal success of Snapchat. Anything posted on Snapchat — photos, selfies, videos or comments — disappear. On Snapchat, people can do all the things they cannot do on Facebook — they can be silly, stupid and let off steam.
Anonymity can be problematic, however. It allows people to take things too far and it can lead to online bullying. “The near-universal mantra that you must appear happy on social media starts to make more sense when you recognize how vulnerability turns you into a target. The appearance of constant happiness is a defense mechanism, a way to protect yourself from the risks that come with putting yourself out there for the scrutiny of others,” Freitas wrote.
Alice, a first-year student, said that “people want to see others as happy and people are easily bothered by someone who confesses that they aren’t happy or aren’t what everyone wants them to be. If more people stepped out of their boxes, found their true selves, and posted that self online, they would get a lot more hate and they would be a lot more vulnerable, but ultimately maybe more people would start being honest.”
Having interviewed 200 students and conducted a survey of several hundred more, Freitas realized two things. First, that smartphones and social media have taken over young people’s lives and second, that young people feel they are not equipped to handle this dramatic change.
Where young people are concerned, communication is the key. Parents and educators have to be open, approachable and understanding. It is the best way to encourage children and young adults to share the problems they are experiencing so a suitable solution can be found. As social media platforms gain popularity, it is becoming difficult not to join. However, the long-term effects of social media use are still unknown.
Book Review: If you are happy and you know it, post that selfie
Book Review: If you are happy and you know it, post that selfie
What We Are Reading Today: Little Bosses Everywhere by Bridget Read
In “Little Bosses Everywhere,” journalist Bridget Read tells the gripping story of multilevel marketing in full for the first time.
“Little Bosses Everywhere” exposes the deceptions of direct-selling companies that make their profit not off customers but off their own sales force.
The book lays out an almost prosecutorial case against many multilevel marketing schemes, explaining why regulators need to take the industry seriously, and the larger story it tells about whom the economy has set up to fail.
The book “reads like a thriller as it investigates the birth and growth of this shadowy and sprawling industry that polished up door-to-door sales with a new veneer of all-American entrepreneurialism,” said a review in The New York Times.
The book primarily focuses on a broader analysis of pyramid schemes and their history.
What We Are Reading Today: ‘King Leopold’s Ghostwriter’
Author: Andrew Fitzmaurice
Eminent jurist, Oxford professor, advocate to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Travers Twiss (1809–1897) was a model establishment figure in Victorian Britain, and a close collaborator of Prince Metternich, the architect of the Concert of Europe.
Yet Twiss’s life was defined by two events that threatened to undermine the order that he had so stoutly defended: a notorious social scandal and the creation of the Congo Free State.
In “King Leopold’s Ghostwriter,” Andrew Fitzmaurice tells the incredible story of a man who, driven by personal events that transformed him from a reactionary to a reformer, rewrote and liberalized international law—yet did so in service of the most brutal regime of the colonial era.
In an elaborate deception, Twiss and Pharaïlde van Lynseele, a Belgian prostitute, sought to reinvent her as a woman of suitably noble birth to be his wife. Their subterfuge collapsed when another former client publicly denounced van Lynseele.
Book Review: ‘Oil Leaders’ by Dr. Ibrahim Al-Muhanna
Dr. Ibrahim Al-Muhanna’s book, “Oil Leaders: An Insider’s Account of Four Decades of Saudi Arabia and OPEC’s Global Energy Policy,” offers a detailed narrative of the oil industry’s evolution from a Saudi perspective, drawing on the author’s four decades of experience.
Published in 2022, the book coincides with global energy crises triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Al-Muhanna relies on data from OPEC, the International Energy Agency and interviews to provide an anecdotal biography of key figures who shaped oil politics, targeting a broad audience including policymakers, researchers and industry professionals.
The book is divided into 11 chapters, beginning with the influential role of Saudi Oil Minister Ahmed Zaki Yamani, whose overconfidence and perceived indispensability are critically examined.
Subsequent chapters highlight other pivotal figures, such as Hisham Nazer, Yamani’s successor, and delve into events such as the 1991 Gulf War.
The narrative also covers Luis Giusti, of Venezuela’s PDVSA, whose disregard for OPEC quotas sparked tensions, and discusses OPEC’s struggles with production cuts and falling oil prices in the late 1990s, which led to economic crises in oil-exporting nations such as Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.
Al-Muhanna explores the political ramifications of oil price fluctuations, noting how high prices influenced US presidential elections and shaped diplomatic interactions, such as George W. Bush’s visit to Riyadh.
The book also examines the rise of Russia under Vladimir Putin, the privatization of Saudi Aramco as part of Vision 2030, and the roles of contemporary leaders such as Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman and former US President Joe Biden in shaping global energy policy.
What We Are Reading Today: ‘Africa’s Buildings’ by Itohan I. Osayimwse
Between the 19th century and today, colonial officials, collectors, and anthropologists dismembered African buildings and dispersed their parts to museums in Europe and the United States.
Most of these artifacts were cataloged as ornamental art objects, which erased their intended functions, and the removal of these objects often had catastrophic consequences for the original structures.
“Africa’s Buildings” traces the history of the collection and distribution of African architectural fragments, documenting the brutality of the colonial regimes that looted Africa’s buildings.
What We Are Reading Today: ‘Birds at Rest’ by Roger Pasquier
“Birds at Rest” is the first book to give a full picture of how birds rest, roost, and sleep, a vital part of their lives.
It features new science that can measure what is happening in a bird’s brain over the course of a night or when it has flown to another hemisphere, as well as still-valuable observations by legendary naturalists such as John James Audubon, Alfred Russel Wallace, and Theodore Roosevelt. Much of what they saw and what ornithologists are studying today can be observed and enjoyed by any birder.
