A Social Media Letter to My 10 Year Old Self
Dear 10 year old Justyne,
While the internet and social media may feel like a crazy complicated information tank right now, one day you will learn that when searching for “The best burger restaurant in Toronto Ontario” you can literally just type burgers, and Google will give you all the juicy pictures and links to places around you.
In the next 12 years you’ll develop a love and appreciation for the internet and all its wild capabilities. I know you just got Facebook, and that seems like the best thing since your Tamagotchi, but for your 16th birthday you will get an iPhone and that will completely change your internet habits and the way you use social media.

Done are the days of Farmville and Picnik. In the span of about an hour, you’ll get Vine, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat, and that will mean that you’re always connected to the people and the wold around you. And since you are sort of jealous that you weren’t already this tethered, you’ll spend most of that birthday weekend camping trip making up for lost time! It’ll probably become a bit addicting, and you should try not to think of your whole life as being a postable moment, but I know you probably will anyway. With your photographer brain you’ll most likely spend a lot of time staging the perfect moment, just to make sure your life looks aesthetically pleasing. People will try to tell you that “this is how social media makes you mold your life to fit a standard”, but I’ve always found it lighthearted and fun, so I don’t think you need to worry too much about that.

By the time you’re 18 you’ll realize that social media can actually be super lucrative and useful for your professional life. You’ll take your love of photography and turn it into a business, where online social marketing will be your best friend! As you create and curate your Facebook and Instagram business pages, your audience will grow, and your customers too! Your view of social channels become less for showing off and more for staying connected. As you and your friends go off to University, social media helps you feel tied to the relationships you left back home and in high school. It becomes a way of sharing experiences and a way of letting you know the people you miss are all still around.
As your media education and professional career starts, you’ll narrow down your channels. When you were once connected on 6 platforms, you’ll now probably only use about 3. You’ll use it mostly to share events and self promote your business, and to creep that weird girl from high school who moved to Vancouver, now works in a night club and is now and Instagram model.
You will learn how to optimize your social usage to best benefit your business, drive audience views and gain new customers. The first person who hires you because they “found you on Facebook and liked your work” will be the beginning of a shining year online, where portfolio will grow and drive more of these random find customers.

Sometimes you may feel a bit wrapped up in all of it. Like you can’t live without checking your feeds. Not being constantly connected may leave you feeling so isolated and alone, even when you’re in a room full of people. I’m sure you find it hard to imagine that social media could ever take such precedence over your life, but as long as you keep a solid head on your shoulder, and stay true to who you are, I believe (if I do say so myself) that you can make social media do great things for you!