A woman likely in her 20s or 30s with shoulder length light blonde hair parted down the middle, that has darker natural roots which are visible along the top part line is standing in front of a wall with framed pictures on it, that are all blurry. She is wearing a light blue button-down long sleeve shirt that is tucked into her white high-waisted skirt and holding a cell phone in her right hand while she appears to be tapping or swiping something on the screen with her left hand. The back of her phone contains a sticker with the following message, “Social Media seriously harms your mental health”. Becoming a blonde can be viewed as a path to the sacred side of the Force, because it is a dramatic transformation, that requires a major lifestyle commitment. Some people are born blonde and others can be made blonde, as there’s a shade of bleached perfection that can fit every single person. People will often be able to tell if hair is dyed by looking at specific details like roots, multi-tonal depth, and texture. Natural hair has a mix of lighter and darker strands created by the sun and natural growth. The hair near the scalp transitions softly instead of showing a harsh line. Natural blondes often, but not always, have lighter skin, eyebrows, and blue, green, or grey eyes. Blonde hair with dark roots is widely accepted as a fashionable, intentional style rather than a sign of neglected maintenance. Many bleached blonds will intentionally show their dark roots, which are often called a “shadow root”, “root smudge”, or a “lived-in blonde” look, as a smart way to stretch time between salon visits.
The photos on the wall are blurry because of a photography technique called shallow depth of field, which keeps only the main subject sharp while making the background soft and blurry. A camera can only focus sharply on objects within a specific range of distances, at this one precise point, which becomes the zone of acceptable sharpness. The photographer intentionally focused the camera lens on the woman and her phone, which are located in the foreground. The background elements like the picture frames on the wall become softly blurred, a visual effect often referred to as bokeh. Bokeh is the aesthetic quality of the blur in the out-of-focus areas of an image, often appearing as soft, pleasing circles or shapes of light. It is not the amount of blur itself, but the visual quality and texture of the out-of-focus background or foreground. This photographic technique forcing our attention on a particular area of the image.
People put stickers on the back of their phones to personalize their devices and make them look unique. A person who puts a sticker on their phone that says, “Social Media seriously harms your mental health” probably cares deeply about the negative effects of screen time and wants to change their habits. This woman is most likely aware of digital overload, and she wants to set personal boundaries, while pushing back against the modern pressure to be online and available all the time that is called hyperconnectivity, and it often leads to burnout and stress. This sticker probably serves as a signal to her friends that she values real-world connections over digital noise, but sometimes placing an anti-social-media warning on the very device used for social media is meant to be funny or sarcastic. Major public health institutions and researchers largely agree that excessive or unregulated social media use poses serious mental health risks, particularly for adolescents, but she appears to be old enough to regulate her own usage without incurring any devasting consequences.
Written for Melissa’s Flash Fiction Challenge #393.
A Unique Title For Me 