Don’t Be Afraid…but Remember, it’s Permanent
Social has media has been apart of my life since I was about 10, when I first opened by Facebook account under my mum’s supervision. I used it to play Tetris with friends, and talk to friends back home. Soon came MSN, and it was a way to talk to my classmates, my crushes and send chain emails that would first scare me to death, and later be an annoyance. Early high school brought tumblr, BBM and Vine, that would let me curate my creativity, chat to my friends and waste my time laughing at videos that would shorten my attention span to six seconds. Finally the later years of high school would bring Instagram and Snapchat, which are still present and used in my life now. We as a generation, didn’t only grow up with social media like the younger generation is now, but it grew with us, we saw it change and so it did us. Considering all this, this what I’d say to my younger self, on her social media journey…
**Don’t be afraid. Social media is so much less of scary place than you think. It is a place for expression, sharing and creativity that can help you discover things you didn’t even realize existed. However, you must remember its permanent, it will follow you, so post things that would make your parents proud, as well as yourself. Use it as a tool for change, but not replacement for it. Share your content, share your awesome and remember that what you see is never the whole story.**
The way I feel about social media has changed a lot since I started university. I was lucky enough to get through school without having any troubles with it, as I stayed away from ask.fm and was fortunate not to experience the epidemic that is cyber bullying. Social media for me has always been about communication, particularly to those that are far away as I grew up in multiple countries, and now I live in a different city to my family. Although this hasn’t changed, I know see social media as a crucial factor to developing my professional career. Social media now, more than ever in my life, is an outlet for me to be creative, truthful and a place to build a brand that is truly reflective of my life.
Although I know social media has many downsides, I’d like to believe that I’m pretty aware of them, enough so to avoid the utmost dangers. More than ever I see social media as something more exciting than I did in my past, rather than something toxic. It allows me to curate, communicate and keep up with what’s happening in the world. In times I can see how it increases my anxiety levels, whether its a sense of FOMO or simply seeing something awful happening in the world. I see how my brain is overloaded with information, images, words and thoughts, preventing me to sleep at night. But despite these things, I won’t delete them from my life, because with out it many parts of my life that are important to me would disappear, as they often take part in places I am not. So to my younger self I would say, use your social media in ways that help your creativity and connect you to those love.
