Modern society has made us pay a lot of attention to the platforms we are using and the weight they have on culture.
Gen Z, more than anyone else, has glorified the importance of platforms. Although, of course, when you ask a random Gen Zer what they classify as a platform, they’ll know exactly what we’re talking about! Instagram? TikTok?! Youtube!!!
We all wither away and indulge in “Brain Rot” content. Then, we question how we are capable of spending 20+ hours of our week on TikTok.
Ugh! There Are Limits.
At the touch of a screen, you can post anything you can imagine… with limits.
On Instagram, you can post 10 square cropped pictures or videos at a time. If you want to post videos, it can only be a minute long. If you post only one video, the length can be up to ten minutes. You can play around with audio (only if your collection has no videos), location, tags, and expressing yourself for 2200 characters at a time!
”What if I can’t get my point across and follow the 2200 character limit?”
”What If my video needs to be 10 minutes and 1 second convey to my message correctly?”
Well, tough luck. You’ve just realized you are, in fact, confined to the platform’s regulations. And you’ll follow what they want while your brain is being rewired! It is exactly what they intended. As a result, we are constantly being fed fast-paced information at the web’s every corner.
“I want the information and I want it fast!”
Structured Expectations!
It’s true!
Yes, these platforms are fun and a good way to express yourself and see the world without it having to see you. But its underpinnings repress the easygoing facade. It goes much deeper than that. As stated in this quote by Applen,
“What we fail to notice, or perhaps do not notice at the time of a new technology’s inception, is that eventually it has other effects on our culture, and this is the “message” that McLuhan refers to: “the ‘message’ of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs.”
Applen, 22
On Instagram, I follow an account run by two men called “thegardenstate”. They have a podcast (that I don’t listen to), but post clips of it to their page. These information saturated posts are usually under two minutes long. It doesn’t seem long, right? It’s the quickest way to receive New Jersey news. And it’s the format many other informative pages follow. Therefore, it is now what is expected by the public (besides our nation’s elders). It is directly affecting our culture. We now find value in fast-paced, informative content.
There are endless valleys to explore the effects of modern day platforms. Is it necessarily problematic? We’re about to find out.
Sincerely, a fellow contributor!
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