Blog #12 The Final Post

I never thought I would make it this far! I remember my first day of class and didn't even realize I would finish this class so early in the semester! Now, let's talk about social media. 

I still think about the night I downloaded Instagram onto my phone just for fun. I was in the 6th grade and didn't know anything about how social media works. Little did I know it would change my whole life in a way. At first it got me excited, as I was able to find old friends that I haven't seen in years and catch up with them. Bu after time from late middle school to most of high school my posts started to change from when I first had it. Before then, I used to post just funny little photos every couple days, now while I don't post as often when I do, I try my damnedest to make sure every picture would reach top level perfection. From adjusting the colors, to posting them a the perfect time wherever everyone would check and see it, to making sure it has the perfect caption, and of course, checking how many likes it gets. And I would check it frequently. I thought like each of my posts as if they were a movie and I saw the like section as how the movie did at the box-office! And always tried to make sure at least a couple of people would comment on it! It was a pretty unhealthy mindset I had that,. I'll admit still have a little bit of even to this day!

Then we have Snapchat. I got this in the middle of 7th grade. At first I treated it the same way I treated having Instagram. I would just post silly videos of me or selfies with filters on and whatever. It all was going well but stuff started to change. Around 2017, I started doing streaks, where you would send a picture of yourself to a person and they would send one to you back. After about 3 days of doing this, you would start to develop a streak number next to that person's name. I started doing this not only with my friends that I would see on a daily basis, but also to the people who would not see as much or even igknolwedge if saw them. These people were just acquaintances to me. If felt like social media was starting to develop a new part of me. A more fake part. Things only got worse when Snap Map was revealed. This was a way where you would see people's locations if they allow it. This started to effect my self esteem as some nights I would be at home and bored and see some of my fiends all grouped together. And I don't want to say anything because it would make it seem like I'm stocking people. This new invention made seems to have done a lot more harm than good. 

Even my posts on Snapchat became a lot less active. Where I would really only post me at cool locations and stuff like that. I would have a private story that was more for posting funny or serious stuff on my mind. So in a way, the smaller account I had for snapchat that only a select group of close friends is on shows off a more real version of than my actual official account. And I know I am not alone on this.

There are other social media platforms I am connected to such as Twitter and TikTok but to be honest I do not post much on them. I don't want to use twitter too much because I know that if I started posting more of what is on my mind as if it is my private story on snapchat, one post could come back to bite me in the ass when going to apply for a job. And while I don't consider cancel culture as big and as horrible as some other people make it out to be, I certainly don't want to be one of the next people the internet is hating at. And the reason why I don't post as much on Tiktok is well to be honest, it requires too much work. I honestly find it too tough to make the perfect video to post. I've posted a few things, some which did get a good amount of views but it ultimately only 15 minutes of fame and I found it would be distracting to keep posting videos constantly to keep the status. That being said, I still like to watch other people's videos and have found myself spending hours laying in bed watching TikToks!

So overall, social media has really taken over my life. I still think about what I post carefully, so that nothing could come back to haunt me. But honestly I'm starting to think about just taking a break from it for a weekend and see how well my state of mind is afterwards. to compare how I behave with and without my phone and internet on me at all times. I ultimately just want to be myself and don't want to hide behind some account that shows off the best pictures of me. I hope more people understand that all of those likes, all of those followers, and posts of your friends having fun. It just doesn't matter. Social Media is only a bubble I hope more people will try to pop.

Sources:

https://www.fastcompany.com/90315706/kids-parents-social-media-sharing