So first I read the original ‘Teenager’s view on social media’ and the follow-up, on virality, and then ‘A 13-year-old’s view on social media’.

(And let me just say here that I think a nineteen-year-old still counts as a teenager, it’s America’s culture of seeing people as adults when they start college coupled with becoming a legal adult at 18 that seems to say otherwise. Here in Singapore, no matter how much your school goes on about how they treat us like mature young adults so we better act like it, we’re really just teens until 21.)

There are tons of similarities and differences as to how people of different ages use social media and together both articles made me think about my personal views on social media and how I’ve used social media throughout my life, and I realised that they seem to change every 2 years or so. So I’m going to give you my take on the now, plus a little of the past where I can.

Without further ado:

FACEBOOK: I first created Facebook at the somewhat illegal age of 11 like almost everyone else. And used it for gaming. Between 13–14 y/o, we discovered the use of facebook groups and there would be groups for any and every kind of circle — school groups, class groups, CCA groups, house groups, clique groups, project work groups. We posted pictures obsessively — entire albums for special events. Pages were also a thing. We followed lots of pages that posted any content remotely within our interests (but it pretty much ended there). Now, no one hardly uses Facebook anymore. We still go online ocasionally but don’t do much on it. (I still use it a fair bit to chat with my friends without using phone credit, but’s that because I’m still using a dedicated, hardy Nokia from 6 years ago instead of a smartphone and hence lacking in the next app…)

WHATSAPP: USED RELIGIOUSLY. Let me tell you, we Singaporeans are HUGE cheapskates. So when this app, which give users free messaging as long as there’s wifi for a dollar or so, it becomes the de facto mode of communication. The class, CCA and clique groups are all on whatsapp now, where people can easily discuss group work and teachers disseminate announcements and homework reminders. Which is extremely annoying for me because I’m still using my good ol’ Nokia and hence I don’t have Whatsapp but everyone assumes everyone else has whatsapp so sometimes people neglect to send me important messages. But there are a few friends who diligently pass on every message to or summarise discussions for me. (Also coincidentally, my Nokia has been slowly disfunctioning over the past 2 weeks so I’m getting an upgrade this afternoon. Which means I’m getting whatsapp this afternoon.) Personally, I don’t really see Whatsapp as a form of social media, jsut a means of communication, but by all means.

Random story: my school has a boarding programme where we stay in the school hostel for 6–8 weeks a year, and that’s when Whatsapp goes out of the window because the Wifi in the boarding school is horrendous. It’s only available in the dining hall and even then you can’t always connect. It’s so frustrating for everyone because they can’t check their messages. Everyone except me, that is. The wifi issue has ameliorated this year though, and if you’re lucky, you can still get a connection from certain spots across all levels.

INSTAGRAM: This is where the post-event photos have moved to from Facebook. Even I have an account, which I use to follow people from my desktop (and, as a hobby photographer, post my photos using third party desktop apps, but sshhh).

Honestly, I don’t know much about how people my age use instagram because I don’t follow many peers — I’m not into your selfies or your Starbucks order or your outing to adventure cove or worse, your #ootd, so I only follow a handful of good friends and fellow student photographers, on top of other photographers, artists, and yogis. I guess people follow a mix of peers, celebrities, and accounts that revolve around topics of their interests.

TWITTER: Most people probably have Twitter but we don’t really use it for anything. Sometimes I post random weird one-liners that come to my head, or lyrics of a song I’m currently obsessed with, or to rant about unnamed people to no one in particular. And there was one time I used twitter for hard-core KCA voting. But that’s me. We don’t really have any particular use for twitter.

SNAPCHAT: What’s this for? I don’t see people using this very much. Ocasionally people post weird stuff with weird captions, like earlier this year when my class got our SG50 Lego sets and everyone started building anything but the local landmarks the set was for.

TUMBLR: The funny thing about tumblr is that most people have an account but no one knows each other on tumblr 99% of the time. We can share memes and the other will go ‘oh I saw that on tumblr’ but no one asks you what your tumblr is. I only know 3 people’s tumblrs — one because I introduced her to the site, another we mutually exchanged our tumblr urls, and the third I found out because person #2 kept reblogging stuff from her.

The uses of Tumblr are vast and diverse. Maybe the talented art senior posts her own drawings and has hundreds of fans. Aforementioned person #1 makes themes and gifs for her favourite animes, some people just reblog funny cat videos. The top lit student could be a popular fanfic writer. Anyone could be doing anything on Tumblr and we don’t mind each other’s Tumblr businesses.

GOOGLE: We use Google Drive for group projects a lot, especially when writing a report is involved (and it usually is). Before that, we would have 5 different copies of one document floating around our emails, each slightly different from the other, and consolidating them was a nightmare. Because of this, almost everyone has a google account, but Drive (and search, obviously) is just about the only thing we use. I don’t know how Google+ works, and I doubt many others do too.

YOUTUBE: Those who have a good singing voice, know it, and love it post covers there. People who are good at creating montages also sometimes put up montages of big events, like orientation, or the class trip to Vietnam. Otherwise, we just watch youtubers, funny videos, and clips from TV shows.