Daiana Collazo

Social Media Influence

In my generation, the prominence of media and the overall world of the internet is at an all-time high. Almost anyone who has access to a phone or computer is participating in this digital world. I can happily say that these technological improvements have been very beneficial to society. It facilitates communication on a global scale and has also made the world move much faster. It has opened up doors for education where people can learn from one another. As beautiful media can be in creating new friendships and bonds online, and also how well-intentioned the creators are when building these platforms, there are flaws in this digital world. I watched a series on Netflix titled “Black Mirror” which battles this same concept of how entertaining and beneficial some media and technological advancements can be but also how dark they can become. This inspired me to create my exhibition centralized around the negative impacts social media can have on others including myself. I am still a very active user of social media even though I am conscious of the flaws in the system. I want my art to show these flaws, not to hate on social media or to convince others to stop using it, but to make people conscious of what media could lead to. This way people can make more conscious decisions on their personal social media platforms. 

My artworks are individual aspects of the flaws of social media. I tackle issues of mental health, addiction, consumer behavior, misinformation, body dysmorphia, digital footprints, and the media algorithm. I organized my art works from left to right starting with my first three pieces titled, “Reduced to a Mere Pixel'', vertically. I thought vertical placement was fitting because it mirrored the structure of instagram which is what my distorted images are. I took my own instagram images and photomontaged them together after pixelating them on a photo editor. Next to this piece is a 3D cardboard die with social media applications on each side titled “Algorithmic Lurkers''. The applications have computer code infiltrating the icon. I wanted to demonstrate how these entertaining applications are recording our digital footprint to not only improve our experience within these apps but also how that information is sensitive and can be used to manipulate human behavior. These two pieces are my first pieces to show the negative aspects of social media within itself. The following three pieces focus on the emotional and physical effects that social media has or can have on people. The third piece, titled as “Too many Stimuli '' tackles mental health and social media and how being constantly exposed to the internet can be potentially harmful due to its misinformation, depiction of social norms and cyberbullying which can be overwhelming especially to adolescents such as myself. The next piece tackles the issue of being addicted to numbers and entertainment in social media titled “Warning: Highly Addictive.” It ties in to the previous art piece because the addiction to media is because of how engaged and stimulated our brains are. I chose smoke to represent the addiction because e-cigarettes became very popular during my generation. The connection between electronic cigarettes and electronics strengthened symbolism in my piece. Lastly, I placed one of the most common issues with media as the last piece, called “Filter My Body”, which is the issue of body image representation. This piece is an installation that the viewer can interact with because it makes the viewer explore the piece and it also makes the piece memorable. 

My pieces together aim to make my viewers reflect and analyze their own digital footprint and their relationship with the media. I want to make my viewers conscious of what lays under the surface of the entertainment. I am in no means asking for everyone to cease the use of phones and media; I am only asking for conscious decision making in regards to it.