My Evolved Relationship with Social Media
Social media was never a significant part of my life. Never wrote a single Tweet. No photos on Instagram. I snapped at the idea of Snapchat. I deleted my first Facebook account, and now the second one just exists.
Social media is funny, though. It has a way of changing, adapting, and being versatile, taking on so many forms that eventually, one of those platforms will be enticing enough to take the plunge. I, too, have changed, and so has my relationship with social media.
Before, its relevancy for me has been largely isolated to be a way of messaging a limited pool of people, a means of communication and not much more. But, does that make it, you know, social? You could certainly argue that it is (or that it doesn’t even matter, like I would have thought years prior), but there’s something more to social media than communication: community.
There’s something to be said about the ‘media’ or ‘medium’ of social media, sharing content with a community, receiving comments and feedback instantaneously, building connections, and discovering new things that are potentially bound to change someone’s life, even if in a small way. This happened to me last year with Instagram when I had the idea to make it into a public sketchbook of sorts. In October, I participated in “Inktober” and did daily drawings for a month. That experience of sharing something that has been very personal but for a new purpose was an exciting time for me, and it got me invested into my drawing in a way I haven’t felt for a while. Twitter was also a platform I never thought I’d get invested in, but the amount of content I’ve seen and the people I’ve discovered online have even gotten me to post a few things from time to time.
It just goes to show how fast things can change. You can jump into social media anytime you want, finding yourself knee deep in communities you’ve either always wanted to be a part of, or never imagined being a part of in the first place. I was hesitant to take that first step, but once I did, I was finally able to understand the value of it and embrace its strengths.
Social media is also identified as a huge time waster. I’ve seen a high amount of “boomer comics” that have aimed criticism to our generation’s propensity toward the Facebooks and the YouTubes and the like. I’m aware they’re exaggerations, but I couldn’t count how many hours I’ve “wasted” on YouTube and Twitter. You have to ask yourself: is it a waste of time? Even if the answer is yes, it’s at least some good introspection to moderate yourself.
Part of me envies detractors, and I remember a time where no such technologies existed. Internet was barely a thing, and social media only really got its small hooks in me once I was in high school. There should be a limit on how much children and teens — heck, even adults — should be consuming and posting, especially with the negative effects on mental health it can irreparably cause. But when used in moderation, social media can be an amazing thing. It helps me stay in touch and up to date with people I could otherwise not see often. I met some incredible students in England who are my best friends now, and we follow each other on a myriad of platforms, sharing posts and pictures and videos and the like. Just being able to participate in group activities from across the pond is a wonderful blessing of the concept of social media that I am happy exists. (Although, Snapchat is something I still don’t understand.)
Things are unlikely to change for now, until technology advances further, which could take any number of years. This generation of children, teens, and adults is living through one of the most rapid booms in technology progression, so anything could happen. There are already examples of virtual reality as a viable platform for changing how we socialize… at least, I mean viable in anything but affordability. For now, sticking with Instagram as a silly sketchbook and sharing it with a community is fine enough as it is.
