Life at, around, and before UD

After our previous classes I always found myself content with how the 50 minutes were spent. I feel like our class has done a great job of taking certain issues and really getting down to addressing them. I found myself somewhat excited to conduct a few interviews with my peers about similar issues. For one thing I wanted to see if their perspective has been similar so what we all have been discussing in class. For another, I wanted to see if there were any things that I’ve never heard before and see if it could change my perspective on certain issues.

I interviewed just a few of my friends regarding health, both mental and physical and how their life is here at UD. I also decided to throw in some of the questions we’ve been discussing about the deep-rooted strengths and weaknesses of social media and smart phones. Some of the things I had been hearing in class about mental health and body image, or lack thereof, were incredibly sad. The lack of confidences at such young ages really hit me hard. Thus. I was hoping that after these interviews I would be able to say ‘no that was just over dramatic to seem interesting in class’ however, I was mistaken.

I asked a few of my friends to grade their mental health right now on a scale of 1-10, 10 being the best, and all their numbers were under 5. Furthermore, all but 1 of the 6 people I talked to said that their mental health increased since getting to college. I followed up this question with asking what they felt were some of UDs biggest strengths and weaknesses. Many of the strengths I got were related to the RA program and the kindness in the people met here on campus. This is comforting to know because an RA can sometimes make or break a residence hall experience. One of my friends actually said ‘if we didn’t have the RA we have I don’t know what I would have done sometimes. My RA has been better than therapy.” The weaknesses named were much more numerous. From the abundant construction, to school resources, to some challenging professors, and to what me and my friend group like to call ‘that Newark smell’ (you all know what I’m talking about), I received a few complaints. However, the one that most struck my eye was the school resources.

 I myself have been lucky and my mental health since getting to college has been stellar. I’ve never even tried to reach out to the counseling center or needed to find someone to talk to. A few of my friends could not relate. They said that they’ve had trouble getting appointments to counseling due to it being overbooked, which is a whole other problem in itself, and that outside of the mental health centers, a few of them have pretty awful advisors who have been rude and condescending to them. I have been lucky and have not experienced any of this so hearing it from them interested me a lot.

After all this I then shifted to the topic of social media at young ages and the questions I brought up seemed to hit them a little harder than previous ones. Right off the bat they mentioned tik tok. Not only how skewed that platform is with all the issues it has, but also that simply watching videos on it makes all of the girls I talked to insecure about themselves because “unlike magazines these are real people. Real people who are sometimes younger than we are, and they all look better than me and I look at it every day.” This fact paired up with everyone’s apparent addiction to the app caused a decrease in self-esteem. I brought up to them why they think we compare ourselves to these people or why do they feel insecure looking at them and we got down to some scary stuff. They brought up when they started to feel insecure. For me the answer to this felt sad because I started to be fully aware of my body and how it looked and how I presented it when I was 12. 12 seemed way too young to lose your childhood to insecurity. When my one girl friend answered with “I think first grade” I was shocked. I asked her why and she said, “because of my unibrow and my teeth and my siblings would make fun of me.” All these things through the mind of a 6-year-old.

I asked if they think that children have it harder today because of social media or if our social skills are any weaker than our previous generations and I was met with 2 different responses. On one hand yes, completely because none of us know what to do with that awkward silence. One of my friends said, “yeah if I ever don’t know what to do, I sit on my phone because I get incredibly anxious.” None of us know how to deal with ourselves and interact with others when things slow down because of our fast-paced smartphone lives. The other response I received was one I don’t think we’ve discussed at all yet and that is that social media has not damaged our social skills but increased it in a new way. She said, “when I randomly quote half a vine in public and someone finishes the lyrics and we give each other that look and sometimes we talk to each other and become friends because ‘wow they know vibes they are cool’ it’s just a new social tool.” I found this incredibly insightful. I think many people see that as a flaw and that we can only socially communicate through these weird mannerisms and that it’s happening faster and faster. My friend, however, just sees it as a new tool for the digital age of children. Hiding behind words and lit up screens can be dangerous but apparently sometimes it can help you make friends. My friends helped me realize that there are pros and cons to every situation and many times, its really your mindset that makes the difference.