The state of social media from a 24 year old point of view

We’re all different, isn’t that just what we find through this social network?

I go to Facebook to see how little I have in common with my “friends” — who are mainly just acquaintances — especially when it comes to politics.

I go to Twitter to realize how little I keep up with things because the inundation of new content is overwhelming.

I go to Pinterest to feel like a privileged materialistic consumer.

I go to Instagram to paint a picture of my life — that you think might be better than what my life is actually like, but really lacks what makes my life truly beautiful.

I never go to Snapchat because I find no use for it at all.

I go to Reddit to find breaking information on things that are actually important, that news organizations should be reporting on but aren’t, as well as cat gifs.

I go to Spotify to listen to the same playlist every day that I might as well buy from somewhere so I don’t have to keep spending 9 dollars a month for the same 20 songs.

I go to Yelp to find good places to go eat because for some reason I trust random strangers more than posting “what should I eat?” on Facebook.

I use Pocket to save all of the content that I will never read in the future.

I use email for 10% work, and 90% newsletters that I inevitably unsubscribe from.

I use Slack to post gifs to my team that are never what I expect — Giphy is the biggest troll ever.

I used Periscope for a week and after live streaming myself walking my dog I remembered how uninteresting my life probably is to other people so I stopped.

I used Pokemon GO! for a month and it’s something I waited for since I was 5 years old but was ridiculed like I was assisting the downfall of humanity so much that I eventually lost interest.

I probably missed a ton of other profiles, apps, social media networks, and other pieces of tech that I don’t even know about because I refuse to keep my eyes glued to the top of the app store anymore even though I work in tech marketing.

The funny thing is, I may be just like you, or I may be the opposite of you, and if you made it this far you’ve interacted with something I’ve said regardless of those facts for at least a couple of minutes.

The beauty of social media is it brings us together in a way that we would never have otherwise been brought together. The sad thing about social media is that all of the bad things that come about in social media stem from the exact same things that make it fantastic.

When we’re connected together, our veil is flipped, we’re no longer in the shadows, and we have to contend with what we are actually like, as well as what other people are actually like.

We see the horrible politicians our friends support, when if we didn’t have social media we would probably just wave at them when we are getting the mail and move on with our lives. Now we hardly want to interact with them at all after seeing that.

We also now have a collective accountability buddy called the internet, that will judge you harshly for your negative actions, and give you praise for something they agree with.

We’re like a giant wolf pack now, casting people out of our pack, but naturally they go create their own.

I don’t know which it’s changing more — how we see humanity, or humanity itself.

I’m glad it exists, but sometimes I really wish it didn’t. Sometimes things seem like they would be a lot more peaceful if we just met for dinner every once in a while, rather than meeting every 20 seconds when I pick up my phone.

Sorry for wasting your time. Welcome to the social web.