Is sharing secrets in social media networks a good idea?
Table of contents:
- Introduction
- The Crux of the Matter
- Conclusion
Introduction
In my opinion, sharing secrets on social media networks is an excellent method to vent and to explore, because it’s the only life we’ve got! If not us then who else’s secret are we going to post? Not a lot of people we know who’d feel fine and normal about it if we start posting their life on social media. So in that sense — choice of lives to post — it’s a practical concern. One’s own life is also the single life we each have the most control over, and access to.
The Crux of the Matter
Some people are of the opinion that one should document their life period; but, sharing it all on social media is unnecessary. Photos and videos should just be used to enhance the storytelling or recollection of a memory, not loosely shared with everybody on any public platform. Absolutely nobody but a stalker would want to know every miniscle thing you’re doing and what you’re doing daily, and documenting your entire life in this fashion is just recharging them.
An audience; major positive of having posted things online!
When someone is screaming at someone else alone in a house, it’s very easy for them to win the argument if you’re in the wrong, or for you to win if they’re in the wrong. But when someone else is there? You get to hear their take on it or even convince them to take your side. More often than not, however, anyone watching as a third party will see you both as wrong and will be too uncomfortable to break up the fight or get involved.
But online? The sheer anonymity and shield that it provides when you want to get cruel, nasty, or petty, is like a drug to people. It makes people addicted to the rush of adrenaline and anger they get from fighting needlessly and viciously behind a screen where no one can see. It makes them addicted to drama.
And what better way to set the stage for your drama than to have it all go down in front of an audience. With so many eyes and opinions flooding the comments, it doesn’t matter who was in the right. No one will win. Because nobody cares who wins, they just came to see a fight.
Their satisfaction goes up at seeing the numbers and reactions to their posts, they think they have a free pass to be as cruel as they’d like, and when it’s done they can just walk away and pretend they’re still a good person.
Those who air their dirty laundry for the world to see love the drama and attention that an audience can bring.
Joke is on them, though. No one sees them as a good person, and will usually steer clear of them or avoid hanging out with them in general. They only came to watch the train wreck, not help clean up the carnage. Seeing it happen on social media just means they get to leave a lot quicker before someone has time to ask for their assistance.
People like that live on makeshift stages and lie in wait for the next fresh pair of eyes they can keep on their play. Best to just take a detour around those people and save yourself some time and energy
Essentially humans are social creatures that need to connect, but we’re living in a world where many of us feel disconnected or marginalized. The online community (through social media networks in particular) is prolific and easily accessible across the globe.
People want to connect and a lot of the times I think people are driven to post their personal issues because they need support and want to connect with others. It’s not always easy to ask for help face to face, and sometimes the support may either not be there or feel difficult to access — hence easy access to online networks.
It’s so fascinating how our world is both increasingly connected while at the same time fragmented with many struggling with feelings of isolation, desire to be seen, to be acknowledged and feel love and support.
For greater insight and understanding, it might help for you to get self reflective about it and ask yourself — What circumstances might push me to express my problems on a public platform? What kind of emotional place would I need to be in for me to seek that attention in this way? What might I get out of it? Brainstorm what they might get out of it.
Often people can also write someone off and call them an “attention seeker.” And they’d be right — they are seeking attention, they are seeking connection because something is ‘wrong’ or missing for them and they are asking for help in the only way they know how at that point in time.
Conclusion
You need to think of it as a “public diary.”
It is cathartic for the author to write about their day-to-day issues, plus they get the sympathy from their friends and family.
The topics and stories are very similar to the hand-written letters you hear historical documentaries use. But those were private letters to one person.
Today, we have the ability to share this information to multiple people all at once.
I feel, ultimately, that people mostly post their lives on social media because something may be missing in their real life, and their hope is that sharing, or over-sharing, their life on social media networks will somehow fill that emptiness in their real life.
In my opinion, most such ventures, or such attempts, to gain acceptance by or from others, will ultimately fail.
