I Don’t Understand Social Media

Photo by Sara Kurfeß on Unsplash

For someone like myself, who has just started to write, I was told to “Get out there!” And I mean onto social media. I am not on social media and never have been. I guess it comes down to a couple of reasons:

1. Why?
2. It is something ELSE I have to do.
3. Why complicate my life even more?
4. How much time is this going to take to learn something new?
5. I don’t understand it. (My niece posts stuff and does those TikTok dances. Or even my students said they would use those filters on Snapchat.)

Yes, social media can be used for great things like raising money for a good cause, or find a missing person or pet, and so on. But it comes down to time. How much time do people spend on their phones posting pictures and videos?

But as a writer, I was told, “You have to be on social media!” And maybe this is true.

I was also told, “Publishing houses want to see if you have a following. They won’t even look at you unless you have a following!”

“Why?” I asked my friend, who is a published author. “That doesn’t make sense. Just because you have a following doesn’t mean the book is worth reading. Content matters! Not a following! I mean, think years ago, social media didn’t exist. And how did they publish books then?”

I continued, “You got published because you are a good writer! Not because you have a following! Let’s look at David Sedaris or even Margaret Atwood! They have been writing for years before social media! They have great content!”

She replied, “If you are someone like Kim Kardashian and you have a huge following, then you can sell a ton of books, like a minimum of 50,000 copies. And that means money for the Publishing Houses!”

I am baffled. Just because Kim Kardashian may put a book out there, why would I want to read it just because she has a lot of followers? It doesn’t make sense to me. If she wrote something with great content, I can see why books would be sold, but not because she has a lot of followers.

This social media thing has percolated in my mind for a few years. Recently, I have asked many people which one I should start with. Instagram? Facebook? Twitter? Snapchat?

What strikes me is the different responses I have received! None of my friends said they use Twitter. Then I discovered that most of my older friends (people ten years older than me) use Instagram. When I was teaching, all of my students used Snapchat. And then there is my niece, who is 20 and uses TikTok and Snapchat. The other moms in my neighborhood said they only use Facebook for school-related information.

My students wanted to know everything about my life and told me they would “stalk” me on Facebook. They wanted to know my shoe size, the names of my children, and my husband’s name, and they wanted to see tons of pictures of my life and so on. These kids were middle schoolers. I asked them, “Do you want my social security and credit card numbers too?” But they clarified that they would find me on Facebook and “friend me” to be friends. I said to them, “No. We are not friends!”

And thus, I never went onto Facebook or Snapchat. I wasn’t willing to share that part of my life with my students. None of my friends are on Twitter, and it seems the younger generations use TikTok, so I narrowed it down to recommendations by published authors to use Instagram.

Last week, I visited our local library because they have “Teens Teach Tech.” So I asked Kelley, our librarian, “Do you have a class that teaches how to use social media?” She said, “No. You can go onto YouTube for that.”

So I went onto YouTube and typed “How to use Instagram,” and all these videos popped up. And I still don’t understand it! I didn’t realize that you only post videos and pictures on Instagram. And why am I doing this?

I became frustrated with how much time I spent learning what to do on Instagram. The good news is that I created an account. I don’t know how to use it, though. Maybe one day, I will understand social media and how to use it.