Travel and Social Media
This past week, I have been out of town and found myself reflecting on travel and social media. While I have really enjoyed decompressing and disconnecting, I had this unnerving feeling that travel leads to an expectation of social media usage. This, I am sure, is at least partially self-imposed, but in a social world, boasting about travel almost feels necessary.
One space that especially urges posts is conference travel. I really enjoy attending conferences and experiencing the learning opportunities that come with it. In addition, it is such a gift to see friends and colleagues at these conferences. This travel comes with pictures on my social media often as I use it to capture these memories and am so grateful for the platform to do so. After the conference, I then shift to thinking about how I can concisely express my experience at this conference to my peers through a LinkedIn post. I see my friends and peers posting their posts and gear up to post my own and it almost feels like the true closing ceremony of any conference.
This necessity makes me reflect on the importance of networking via social media and building that community as we have discussed as a class. While the networking I did in person is valuable, being able to connect with those folks beyond the conference seems just as important. Those connections will strengthen through digital networking and create a community I am intending to build. Those connections, though, also create pressure to ensure that I am consistently updating them on my life through their one way of keeping in touch with me, social media.
I hope that travel continues to provide opportunities for people to find the balance between living in the moment and expressing that moment on social media. I am in no way immune to wanting to take a picture of something cool or at a concert or of my parents and sharing it. I continue to find the balance myself as I believe that social media is just as much about living in the moment as my physical surrounding. Creating a relationship between social media and living in the moment creates space for people to balance both rather than fight with both.
Travel elicits social media usage and I do not think there is necessarily anything wrong with that. I hope I can continue using social media when traveling in conducive ways, especially in knowing when it is time to log off and enjoy the travels rather than looking at Instagram or TikTok.
Travel does lead to social media expectations (sometimes self imposed). Funny thing -- 15 years ago I would travel and post online all the time. And then I bought a house, and felt like posting about my travels while traveling was extending an invitation to burglars. So I stopped travel posting unless someone was in my house at the same time. That's a little different from the idea of being in the moment, but I'll add that I thought about travel posting after returning home, and it's just not the same if it's not in the moment -- and yet the moment is actually better if just living it and not posting it. :)
ReplyDeleteSocial Media can be quite engaging, so much so that we manufacture our presentations to the world. I'm guilty of it. Capturing that best lighting, that flattering angle. I mean I worked in film, it's just something I look for. We make ourselves characters in the projected world. I think sometimes we lose touch with simply being there. Now, I'm old, I try to practice being mindful of the moment I'm in, trying to experience it as richly as I can. But being a Fan of travel, and admirer of folks like Anthony Bourdain, it's important to be aware that we are watching a production, and reality is sometimes quite different. The best way is the middle way, balance. Everything in moderation, including moderation.
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