Social media is a hot button topic for many. The strong opinions that people tie themselves to makes for heated arguments that are one sided with no middle ground. Social media’s popularity in today’s culture makes it hard to avoid and impossible to escape. With the ever changing definition of what social media is and what its main purpose is, people are left to drifting with the tides of trend, rip curled into the sea of endless screen time.

Over time, my opinions on social media have fluctuated intensely. As a young teen, when Facebook was first introduced, I remember feeling that it was weird and unnecessary, but as more and more friends joined I wondered what I was missing. I never made an account though. As smart phones entered the scene and Instagram took Facebook place as the top trending social networking site, I again, didn’t understand it and questioned its popularity. Then came snap chat, tinder, tumblr… and the list goes on. I avoided it entirely for most of my life serving under the notion that social media ‘wasn’t for me’ and that it was a ‘waste of time’. I survived with a lack of social media until university. At times I feel like I missed out on the memes that seem to bond my generations, on the plans that seemed to be made on snap, on the memories that are kept on Instagram. But I also feel like I was saved from constant comparison, the feeling of missing out, on the stress of replying to everyone, the pressure of creating a cohesive feed. Overall I don’t regret my decision, but there are times that I wonder where I would be if I had let the world influence me at a time that I didn’t even know myself.

I now have a YouTube account, and Facebook, and Instagram, and Snap Chat. All because I felt like I couldn’t survive the process of making new friends in university without the aid of this coveted tool I had yet to explore. I’m now two years into these accounts and here are where my opinions lie….

  • Its a complete waste of time
  • it connects you to your friends more
  • It can be a very negative place
  • i use it to shield myself from social awkwardness when I’m alone in public
  • i use it to distract myself from feelings
  • it can be a creative place (Inspiration and displaying)
  • I’m addicted to it
  • I’ve never gone a say without checking any of the above accounts since downloading them as sad as that is to admit

With everything stated above, I want to dive into how social media has affected our society. its youth, its body image, its communication sources, its effect on the climate. EVERYTHING. I want to know what this thing on my phone is really doing to me without my knowledge. Is it really good for me or is society and social pressure telling me that. Writing that list above makes me embarrassed and intrigued to see where this journey takes me. Its going to be a very interesting journey where I need to be honest with myself more than i would like to be, but I’m excited to see where it goes.