There are many reasons why social media is best avoided during the summer. All those shots of people holidaying in sunny locations can be hard to take when you’re stuck in a rain-swept city. But while scrolling through feeds of friends having a #dreamholiday might be accompanied by mild feelings of envy for the post-millennials among us, for adolescents coming of age in this era of digital saturation, the repercussions can be more damaging. As more people communicate via sites such as Instagram and Snapchat, with their emphasis on physical appearance and the shared intimacies of friendship groups, the spectre of exclusion is magnified, and it gets especially bad during the holidays, when students are likely to be estranged from their peers yet still watching their activities from the sidelines.
度假的時候不用社群媒體的原因簡直太多了。當自己被困在瓢潑大雨的城市無法脫身時，想拍陽光明媚度假地的照片肯定是無能爲力的。那些瀏覽主題是#dreamholiday#（夢幻之旅）的朋友圈，可能會讓我們對00後孩子以及生活在這個網路無處不在時代的年輕人有點妒忌，但網路的後續影響更爲負面。越來越多的人藉助Instagram與Snapchat等社群平台溝通往來，並且他們把重點放在外在形象以及朋友圈裏相互的親密關係上，但這樣一來，彼此間的隔閡就被人爲放大，而度假時尤爲突出。這時候，學生很可能與同齡人疏遠，但仍在一旁冷眼旁觀同學們的一舉一動。