Technology is great. There are thousands of things that we can do now that were not possible a few years ago, thanks to the constantly changing world of the internet. We have so much power to do so many great things with the help of the internet and social media, but unfortunately we also have just as many opportunities to do lame and immature things. Yeah, social media is pretty neat, and we get to stay updated with our friends and look at pictures of baby animals when we really should be doing other things. However, with great power comes stupid ways of using social media. Here are some things that we (myself included) all do that just really need to come to an end, like, yesterday:
1. Obsessing about how many friends or followers you have.
Is it really THAT important to have hundreds of people you met once a few years ago like the picture of you and your pet?
2. Using an absurd amount of hashtags in an attempt to make your posts more popular.
This is so lame. Unless your hashtag is a sarcastic joke, or literally just one hashtag with one word, stop it. It's been far overused.
3. Following people you don't even like.
All it does is piss you off and there's a 100% chance the other person could not care less whether you are friends on Facebook or not.
4. Posting something rude that's obviously about a specific person but trying to make it seem mysterious by not including their name. (AKA, the subtweet).
If you are a current offender of this (as I have been in the past), stop it right now. It's rude, it's ignorant, and it's very low-class. Keep it to yourself or text it to your friend for god's sake. I can guarantee you that none of your followers care and the person it's about will just think you don't have anything better to do.
5. Saying something over a private message that needs to be discussed face to face, but you aren't gutsy enough to approach them about it.
It's insensitive and often insincere. If you need to talk to someone, especially if something they did is bothering you or you are apologizing, you either need to call them or say it face to face. There is too much opportunity for you to be cruel and rude if they don't give the answer you wanted.
6. The Facebook Creep.
This one is pretty harmless aside from two things: If you creep on someone you don't like, you'll just get mad at yourself, and if you keep clicking on other names, you'll eventually end up at your best friend's mom's ex-husband's new stepdaughter, and then it just gets weird.
7. Not checking your spelling and grammar before you post something.
It's embarrassing when you try to post something serious and you have an awkward typo. Plus there's always that one person who corrects you, which is profoundly annoying.
8. Arguing with someone about their opinion in the comments.
I can almost 100% guarantee you that you can push your opinion on them for the rest of your existence and you will never sway them into your way of thinking. And if you argue with a third party on someone else's post, the one who posted the status has every right to hate you a little bit, because that's obnoxious.
9. Posting about every single thing that you do so that it looks like you have a really interesting life. (Also known as: the absurdly long snapchat story).
No. Stop it. Unless Leo DiCaprio is on a date with his Oscar trophy at the same restaurant as you or you witness something that is actually noteworthy, YOU DO NOT NEED TO POST ABOUT IT EVERY TWENTY-FIVE SECONDS. Your followers do not care about your lunch, they don't care about your daily routine that you continue to assume is riveting for them to see, and they certainly don't care about seeing the same pose of you and the same person every single day on snapchat. Seriously, knock it off.
10. Ignoring your real life because you think your social media life is more important.
There are so many beautiful things in the world, don't forget to pull your head away from the screen and enjoy it while you're here.
