Social media plays a huge role in many people’s lives, especially teens, and as technology becomes more advanced and new apps come out, it gets hard to get off phones. It’s always the never ending cycle or just one more video, or one more minute, it can get hard to put down the phone and take a step away.
There’s many different forms of content people consume, one of which being lifestyle content. There’s multiple different styles, like a day in my life, after school routines, what I eat in a day, the list goes on. And sometimes, yes, it will make the viewer feel like getting up and being productive, but is this sort of content actually helpful. Emily LeBlanc ’28, enjoys watching morning routines to get inspiration for her own routine and often finds herself becoming motivated to have a routine.
“I like to see what other people are doing in their lives, instead of just watching stupid videos, I’m watching what people are actually doing in their free time,” LeBlanc said. “And I used to not be a morning person at all and now I have a whole morning routine that’s influenced by these videos.”
Lifestyle content can be helpful when someone has no motivation to do anything and oftentimes will allow the viewer to be inspired and want to be more productive with their life. South teacher Jacqueline Shelson, will find herself scrolling on social media and coming across deals on clothing or useful things around the house that she can use as hacks and apply to her day to day life.
“Sometimes it’s almost like white noise, where you just watch and you’re like, ‘oh, that’s a really good idea,’ and every once in a while it is useful,” Shelson said. “And you’re like, ‘wow that’s so much easier to do,’ like folding fitted sheets and watching videos help and things like that.”
From watching morning routines all the way to life hacks, lifestyle content can be helpful for many. But sometimes it can lead people further down the path of endless doom scrolling. Caden Schmidt ’27 enjoys watching gym content, like what I eat in a day or even gym routines, but it can be hard to realize just how long you’ve been scrolling.
“I don’t think it really makes people more productive with their lives, but I do think there’s a good basis for doing it,” Schmidt said. “Watching that while scrolling is the opposite of it, because you’re just going to keep scrolling.”
Lifestyle content is all over social media and can sometimes be a good influence on its viewers, but it’s hard to stop the inevitable doom scrolling that can happen no matter what a person’s consuming online.
“With technology, there’s always so much stuff at your fingertips, and we just need to be aware of how much time we consume things online, it can be beneficial, but everything in moderation,” Shelson said. “And make sure you have boundaries and limits, I think it’s important to always remind yourself to put down the screen and do things in real life right now.”
