HumAndroids

"Imitation is suicide", Emerson's 'Self Reliance' states, interpreting individuality as being dead if it imitates another. The use of social media allows others to view others personal preferences, and this interaction influences both users preferences leading to a lack of individuality in modern society. Social media enables users to define their fellow human beings wither by glorifying their achievements or labeling them by their mistakes. This has resulted in undue anxieties for everyone to fit into a specific mold, the exact thing that individualism was set out to replace.

On social media websites, people try to make their profiles stand out, which is ironic as individualism emerged at a time when being a brick in a wall was the only socially accepted norm. Being unique and thinking differently was undesirable and atypical. Then during the Enlightenment, the individual started being empowered. This resulting culture gave us new heroes, whether they were revolutionary scientists like Galileo and Newton or philosophers like Voltaire that followed. This group challenged the way people thought and brought a breath of fresh air into the world putrefied by religious and social principles. But this cult of individualism has not flourished without distortions in contemporary society.

It has not only given rise to an individual- centered and selfish work ethic but has also led to undue expectations. The drive to make ourself stand out in today's world is catalyzed by social media, as technology enables us to reach out to many more people easier than in real life. This perception of our own influence being bigger than it actually is creates the uprise in narcissism, and compels these anxieties that were once nonexistent.

Ultimately, the HumAndroid is a phenomenon that is governed by social media, creating a difference in how humans interact and develop today. Traditional ways of growing up and socializing are now replaced with easier ways to socialize and make friends, transforming emotional connections made in real life contact to electronic interactions made wirelessly. People with social anxiety often use social media as a less stressful environment for social interaction, and in some cases is helpful. But for the most part, those who only experience social interactions online are deprived of one of the most important factors of developing as a human being, developments in relationships with other humans.

We develop as a human based off past experiences, and if ones past experiences lacks interactions with other humans, how is one supposed to grow into a human themselves or survive in daily life? Other anxieties like the fear of missing out and separation anxiety are what drives this constant connection to keep up with one's social status online, as online and offline life interlace with each other. This online and offline relationship leads to real social costs, and drives the 'individual' to keep up with their profile even more so as their are now both an intrinsic and extrinsic motivations to go on social media.

Narcissists thrive on social media, and the more one checks their profile the more narcissistic they become, promoting themselves on different profiles across the web. Personal choice is blasted as users create and network their profiles, twisting popular culture into a mesh of influenced preferences, usually not true to oneself as we now tailor who we are to our audience. Popular culture no longer holds a mirror to reflect our self identities, nor does it provide feedback about how grounded our self-identites are in the actuality of our lives. The humAndroid starts at the tip of ones fingers, pressing the log-in button to social media and entering a world of false realities.