The Internet has gifted us with the ability to connect to our world. We can find friends in strangers we may have never met otherwise, and see and experience things through the eyes of other people broadcasting their lives through social media - finding inspiration through exposure and awareness to things that would have been inaccessible. In a fast-paced world, social media can help us consolidate our connection with friends and family with the latest buzz news in a single, clean little feed - with the ability to filter out what displeases us and open our world to information we want to receive. We’ve learned to deliver and consume information broadcasted in sound bites, paired with stunning images and provoking headlines vying for attention to buy, support, read, react, re-share, ‘like’ and offer opposition or validation.
So, what does this do to our creative lives? Can we find our own voice in a sea of influences, or are we being molded by the tastes and preferences of others we follow, watch, and from which receive feedback? Do we truly feel free to express ourselves, or do we create and post to cater to our connections for validation? Are we more inclined to seek immediate gratification found in short snippets of information instead of reading a literary masterpiece? Can we appreciate art profoundly or do we just want to take a picture of something to post to instagram and prove we do interesting things?
