Saturday - April 2, 2016

Saturday began bright (or should I say dark) and early at 5 a.m. as my friends and I got up to volunteer for the Bentonville Half Marathon. One of the first things my friend did when we got to the location was take a Snapchat showing her followers where we were and why we were there so early in the morning. It seems that everything we do today is documented by pictures and social media. As we waited to be told what to do by the people in charge, my friends and I scrolled through our phones. Finally, the race started and the three of us put our phones away and didn't use them for the next five hours. It was really nice to be free of the distractions of social media for a while and just focus on the event and the runners. 

Later that day after we took very long naps and caught up on our sleep, my roommate and I went to Andy's for some ice cream. We sat and talked for a long time about all sorts of things. She talked about her big in her sorority; I couldn't remember what she looked like as she was talking about her so my roommate quickly pulled up her picture on Instagram for me. I realized that my friends and I do this all the time - we pull up pictures of people in our sororities, our classes, etc. So much information and so many pictures of people are right at our fingertips. It seems convenient when we're trying to remember what someone looks like or when their birthday is, but when you really think about it, it's kind of creepy! Our lives revolve so strongly around social media and we're willing to share so much information with people we know - and even with people we don't know. Although having this information so close at hand can be very convenient, I often wish that our lives were more private and that if we wanted to find out more information about someone, we would actually make the effort to get to know them rather than just search their birthday on Facebook or see what sorority or clubs their involved in through their pictures on Instagram. Social media has many positive aspects to it, but sharing so much of our lives that probably should stay private is one aspect that needs to change.