By Tracy Bernheim
This semester, I am studying abroad in London. As a sophomore, I closely followed along as all of my junior friends went abroad their spring semesters. Social media was a way for me to stay involved in the lives of my friends while also vicariously living through them and their awesome travels and experiences. I’ve always wanted to study abroad, so I was over the moon with all of the study abroad content I was seeing and all of the things I could look forward to. I had made the decision to create a travel account to document my time abroad prior to going on the journey. I had seen some of my friends create travel accounts when they went abroad and thought it was a good idea!
Almost immediately I noticed how tiring it could be to document my time and travels abroad on the Instagram account. The first issue that arose was the thought of capturing a moment for my travel account and how that stayed at the forefront of my mind instead of taking in the experience or place with my own eyes. It was the idea of only doing things or going certain places in order to capture it for social media. This is definitely an issue prevalent in all of our lives due to the overarching presence of social media, but it seems almost amplified by being abroad, as you are experiencing things only a few other people are experiencing and it acts as a way of “showing off.” A lot of time is wasted on trying to achieve the perfect picture or video to try and portray the best image of whatever you are doing or seeing. When that becomes the main focus, you completely forget to take in the experience through your own eyes.
The next issue I noticed was how deceptive social media could be. We always have that little voice in the back of our heads telling us not to believe everything we see, but being abroad I have found that harder and harder to listen to. I am constantly comparing all of my abroad experiences to those of everyone else currently studying abroad. This made me sad when my experiences weren’t matching up to the experiences I was seeing others posting online. Also, the use of my travel account felt like a chore, as I began to post for the enjoyment of others as a way to prove that I was also having fun instead of for my own enjoyment. Even a short post on my travel account about a weekend trip I went on could feel like a tiring activity because I felt the pictures I took weren’t good enough or that I didn’t do enough fun things.
In reality, most of the time during your study abroad experience, you are in fact studying! That is what we go abroad for. A large aspect of where we choose to go abroad is based on the academic experience and classes that are offered to us that we couldn’t get at GW. Everyone gets so caught up in what is being portrayed on social media that we forget most of the time everyone is probably in class, studying, or living a normal school life. The same chores you do at home still apply; getting groceries, cooking food, and doing laundry. It is definitely something I need to remind myself of when I see that someone just went skiing or another went on a private boat in the French Riviera. The main thing to remember is that most things you see on social media are put there for a reason. People are trying to give off a specific persona or vibe. This is especially prevalent throughout the study abroad experience. It is important to try and remember that everyone experiences everything differently and that you can’t compare experiences because you never know what is going on behind the screen. For the rest of my time abroad, my goal is to focus on taking in the experience without my phone and to prioritize my in person relationships and experiences.
