Welcome back to Roar: The Podcast, Season 4. In this round table podcast, juniors Mia Rahbar, Marayah Aguilar and Asia Celestine discuss how social media can affect students.
Speakers:
- Juniors Mia Rahbar, Marayah Aguilar and Asia Celestine
Mia Rahbar: Hello, everyone. Welcome to Santa Clara The Roar’s podcast. I’m Mia Rahbar. I’m a junior at Santa Clara High School, and I’m a staff writer for The Roar.
Marayah Aguilar: I’m Mariah Aguilar. I’m a junior at Santa Clara High School, and I’m a staff writer for The Roar.
Asia Celestine: Hi, I’m Asia Celestine. I’m a junior at Santa Clara High School, and I’m a staff writer for The Roar.
Today we’re going to be talking about social media expectations and how it can affect the online. To start off, I want to ask you guys, how do you think that social media has affected you personally?
Mia: I think that I’ve caught myself trying to make my Instagram aesthetically pleasing to other people when they look at my Instagram. Or making good posts, watching what I post on my story because I feel that some people might judge what I post and reflect it on me. If I post something weird or I post too much, people might be like, “Why are you posting so much?” There’s an expectation on Instagram to fit an aesthetic look.
Asia: I think for me personally, I’ve been told that I have an unapproachable Instagram – whatever that means – but it’s because my Instagram is not very… I wouldn’t say it’s not aesthetic, but it’s not very out there. It’s very dark. All my highlights are just black. All my posts have a dark filter.
People really do judge you based off of how your Instagram looks, and I feel like that’s kind of weird, especially if they don’t know you in real life. For them to just take your personality based off of Instagram is just crazy.
Marayah: I feel like on Instagram, I don’t really post a lot of posts on how I am, or my personality. I usually post pictures that I find aesthetically pleasing, and I don’t usually post stuff that is how my personality is, I guess.
Mia: I feel like if someone looks at your Instagram before actually meeting you in person, they kind of base off… or if you’re trying to get a general idea of someone, like, “Oh, this person’s in my class, let me look at their Instagram, see how they are” and get like a general idea of them. They look at your Instagram, and they can go through your highlights and your posts and your tagged posts. Based on that, they can get an idea of you, but also, if someone looks at another person on Instagram or any social media in general, they can self-reflect themselves on someone else based on how they look, or how they act.
Asia: Like compare themselves?
Mia: Yeah.
Asia: I feel like a lot of people do that, especially in our generation, where it’s like… We have all these influencers and all these people that are high up, and they’re just kind of showing us this luxury life. They go out every weekend, or they have all this makeup and do all these different things when that’s not really realistic for people.
Obviously, social media is what you want people to see of you. When people go on Instagram and base (their lives on) other people’s lives (like,) “Oh yeah, I wish I was like that,” it’s just not realistic because social media is just what you put out there. It’s just what you want people to see of you. It’s like even though you have all these flaws, these other people probably have the same flaws, but they’re not like publicizing these flaws.
Mia: I feel like if you start comparing yourself to other people – even though it’s not the true idea of what that person is – it can also affect your mental health and well-being. Some creators angle their videos to be body positivity and showing their own body and spreading that positivity. Not everyone has to fit this general idea of how you’re supposed to look. Blah, blah, blah.
Then there’s some people that are just innocently posting, like, “Oh, I’m gonna post this video because I look good. I think that I personally look good.” Or something like that. Or just posting in general. Then some people can go into your comment sections and reflect or compare their body to the creator and go on the… comments and compare themselves publicly. Like, “Oh, I wish I looked like that.” Or, “Okay, so I’m not eating today,” or whatever. It can put the creator in an uncomfortable position because they don’t know how to respond to that. They don’t know how to look at that. In their point of view.
Asia: For me personally, I have a lot of friends, so whenever we go out and we do things as a group and we take group pictures, I never have a problem with people posting bad pictures of me just because I know it’s not me. I know that’s not who I am, not who I am in real life. One snipe, one bad picture of you doesn’t really define me. So for me, I have a lot of friends who (are like,) “No, I don’t look good in that. Don’t post it. If you post it, you’re such a bad person,” but it’s just Instagram.
I don’t know. I think there’s a lot of judgment that goes on there within not only the person viewing but also the person posting.
Marayah: I feel like it can cause an overall feeling of envy within a group. I feel like that’s something that can be really toxic, especially social media.
I feel overall it has the effect to be toxic to both the creator and the people who are watching it ‘cause it is hard to not compare yourself to whatever you see online, especially if you’re consuming hours of media on end. I feel like that’s something that you can’t get away from.
Mia: Not only can social media affect mental health, but it can also affect your school work. Scrolling endlessly can be a distraction from homework, school, class work. I think next year the school is trying to ban phones from the classroom.
Marayah: I’ve seen a lot of my classes have phone pockets and stuff like that, where you’re only allowed to use it during a free time.
Mia: Yeah, and that’s mostly because this generation is very addicted to their phones, and it can get in the way of doing good in school.
Asia: Honestly, I feel like having that room where you can’t have your phone in class will probably be beneficial just because for me personally, if I forget my phone, (or) there was also a time period where I was grounded and I didn’t have a phone, I feel like I was very present in class. I was very on top of everything. I did all my work. Whereas now, I have my phone. It’s kind of like I’ll hold stuff off. I’ll be like, “Oh, I’ll just do it at home. I’ll do it later on.” It’s much harder for me to focus when I have this distraction right in front of me that’s basically calling my name. It’s hard to focus.
You have something so close to you that it can distract you. It can also suck you in where it’s like you don’t realize how long you’re on your phone for. You don’t realize how long you’ve been scrolling on TikTok or scrolling on Instagram, and you just kind of sit there and just brought in your phone.
Marayah: I think that it’s also beneficial to have a place where you don’t have your phone in your pocket 24/7 because when you go home, there’s a lot of things that can be distracting you from your schoolwork, not even your phone, but if you have siblings or stuff like that. There’s a lot of things that you can get distracted from.
Unless your parents purposely take away your phone, you’re always gonna have your phone at home. So I feel like there (are) ways that school can help you, or taking your phone away at school can help you with your schoolwork. Speaking on what Asia said, screen time going up can cause such a negative feeling, like you’re wasting the day away, or you kind of didn’t have a purpose for that day. You’re just in your bed scrolling, and I feel like that’s not a good feeling. You see all these people going out. Actually… yeah, that’s it.
Mia: Going off of what you just said, the “It Girl” is kind of like trending, and it’s just like, “Oh, I’m not on my phone. My screen time is really low. I try and make it productive, making a nice tea in the morning, working out at 5.”
That’s kind of unrealistic. Nobody’s gonna wake up at 5 unless you’re that person, like you’re that morning person to wake up at 5 and be active. It personally motivates me to do it, but then when it actually comes to it, I wake up and I’m just like, “Oh, let me just go on TikTok for like five minutes. I’ll get up later.” That five minutes turns into five hours, and I’m in bed until like 12 o’clock just scrolling.
Sometimes I’ll go on my phone and I’ll be like, “Let me search something,” and then I don’t actually search it up. I just go online For You Page, and I just scroll when I meant to go on TikTok for search engine purposes. Then I just end up scrolling, and it puts me away from that original idea I was going to do and just scroll.
Asia: Going back to what you said, Mia, about people posting them going to the gym, them eating healthy and all that. For me, I can kind of relate to that because I kind of do that. But it’s more of me motivating myself to finish a video rather than me trying to show off. For me, if I’m cleaning my room, or gardening, or whatever it may be, it’s very motivating for me to record and then have this thought in my mind that I need to finish this video. Like, this video is going to come out so cute if I finish. That pushes me and gives me motivation to do the healthy habits, do the cleaning and cooking and all that, but I think it also does take away from the point of it ‘cause you’re not doing it for video. You’re doing it for your life, to better yourself, so… Yeah.
Marayah: I think having that motivation is good. I think it is important ‘cause people channel their energy in different ways, and if that’s what’s going to get you motivated to do these things, that’s what’s going to get you motivated. Even if it may be something small like making a video, it’s still getting you motivated to change your habits, or anything like that.
Mia: Some people use their platform as advertising, as they’re advertising or motivating others, for gym videos, or simply study with me. That motivates me because when I want to wake up early, I go on TikTok waking up at 6:00 a.m. routine. I just scroll, and I’m like, “Oh wow, this person’s doing this, this person’s doing this. Okay, I’m gonna do this.” Or if I need motivation to do my homework but I can’t do my homework right now, I’ll search up on TikTok, “doing homework,” or “study with me,” or “take notes with me.” Then I’ll reflect that person’s video into my habits.
Marayah: I feel like we can’t deny that in this generation, we definitely do let social media influence us, even if it’s those little ways.
Asia: I think having the whole influencer era is both a positive thing for what we were saying where it’s like we have this motivation now – we have this kind of outlet. But I feel like it can also have a negative effect if it reaches the wrong group of people in a way because if you’ve seen the skincare kids or the Sephora kids, where… Those influencer videos with makeup and skincare are made for teens and adults.
They’re not really made for six year olds and because these six year olds are seeing these videos, they’re like, “I want to try that. I’m going to do that,” which is understandable, but at the same time, there has to be some type of boundary that’s set where it’s this is Influencing in a positive way, and this is influencing in a negative way. For me personally, seeing makeup videos and stuff doesn’t really influence me personally because I don’t wear makeup, but I think social media does really try to influence teens and young girls to wear makeup a lot and not really embrace their natural look, which is something I can’t agree on because where I’m from, we don’t really wear makeup.
I guess I just kind of carried that over, but people get really shocked when I’m like, “Hey, I don’t wear makeup. They’re like, “How do you not wear makeup? Your skin is so flawless?” I’m like, “You know, I just take care of my skin.” I don’t really focus on makeup too much ‘cause that’s not my thing. I think people who do wear makeup are really pretty – they look really pretty – but that’s not for me.
I think having that boundary where some things are for some people and some things are not really needs to be set in place.
Marayah: Yeah, I agree. It is important to stick to what you believe in and not let social media influence your decisions and your life.
Mia: This is Mia.
Marayah: This is Mariah.
Asia: This is Asia.
All: Signing off.