About Me
Hello all, my name is Isaac Herman and this is my 2nd semester in the MLIS degree program at Dominican University. I hail originally from Evanston, IL and am currently living in the West Loop area of Chicago. I went to my undergrad at the University of Iowa. I love Chicago, it's home and I've been living here for 8 years now (apart from a brief stint in Traverse City, Michigan for work).
For all intents and purposes I'm a pretty average guy, and talking about myself makes me uncomfortable unless I've been drinking. I worked in content marketing for 8 years before this until my soul couldn't take it anymore, so I decided to change careers and become a librarian (as long as libraries still exist by 2026. Who knows anymore am I right? Buy a Tesla or go to jail), which is what brings me here. I have lots of hobbies including cooking, reading, gaming, stand-up comedy for a year when I was depressed after my girlfriend broke up with me, restoring cast-iron pans via electrolysis, and lying about really specific niche hobbies on blogs.
I have a pretty antagonistic relationship with social media, which doesn't mean I don't enjoy it. I love sending memes as much as anyone else. At the same time, it takes a toll on my self-esteem, which is tough for my personality type specifically. I unfortunately am a naturally envious person and my grandma said I was the only 4-year-old she ever met with a 12th-grade inferiority complex. Does that count as being a gifted child? The only social media website I really use any more is Instagram, and I wish I didn't but I'm pretty addicted at this point.
Besides its addictiveness and its creation of impossible standards to live up to, my main issue with social media is that I think it "plateaus" our emotions. Take Instagram, for example. It's addictive to keep scrolling forever, and think about how many different reactions your brain is having from all of this input. In 1 minute of scrolling, you can see something cute, something horrific, something sexy, something funny, something thought-provoking, something that makes you angry, etc. etc. All of those are in one minute, in incredibly rapid succession. I don't think our brains can really process the appropriate reactions to all of those things so fast, so it all gets jumbled and flattened into an emotional "pancake" (or maybe sausage would be a better analogy). You can read a headline that says "Oil Tanker Explodes, 150 Confirmed Dead" and within half a second see a cute video of a duck making friends with a cat, and you will have the same blank reaction to each. By then you've already scrolled to whatever's next.
In this course, I'm hoping to understand more about the nature of social media and look for the "roses among the thorns" as you mentioned in this module. Right now, all I see is thorns.
Contact Info: iherman@my.dom.edu
Hi Isaac, I think you're really on to something regarding the flattening out of our emotions when we scroll social media. Because there's always a new post to move on to, we don't sit with any one reaction for very long. People have probably always found ways to distract themselves from grief or anger, but I wonder if social media is unique in also distracting us from positive emotions.
ReplyDeleteLike you, I also see more thorns than roses in social media, so I'm looking forward to learning more about the positives.
This was a great post, Issac. Both comical and serious. I appreciated hearing your point of view and rationale and don't disagree. Looking forward to thinking through the thorns with you this spring.
ReplyDeleteIssac, I have been sitting with this "pancake" for quite sometime. I can cry due to the emotions provoked by one video and seconds later be laughing uncontrollably, and the next minute angry. I have talked to my family so much about how that has to have some negative repercussions on our brains. It is not healthy to feel all of those things one after the other. I think your analogy is perfect for it. I know times are getting scarier and scarier as the moments pass, but we need to stay committed to the things we know are worth doing and things we can see the positivity in. I know its easier said than done, but we must keep trying!
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