In today's media-hungry world, we share nearly every aspect of our lives with social media; whether it's a tattoo idea on Snapchat, the sandwich we had for lunch on Instagram or our latest annoyance on Facebook. We share everything. While there are many positives to social networking, such as the ability to instantaneously share photos and memories, there are also many negatives that can arise.

One of the negative aspects that can arise is the lack of originality. Unfortunately, once you put your words, thoughts and ideas onto social media, they fall out of your control and can be manipulated by whomever, however they please. The same thing applies to pictures on Instagram or Facebook (have you seen Catfish?) and while it is unfortunate, it's simply the reality that comes with sharing yourself online.

When I stumble across something I agree with, I share it – like most people do – and I don't think there's anything wrong with propelling someone's message across a platform. Furthermore, I don't think being influenced by someone else's work is anything to be ashamed of either. Writers look to other writers for inspiration all the time, musicians look to the Top 100 to help trigger a hit; it happens and it's okay.

What threatens the concept of originality, however, is when someone takes an idea, picture, article etc... and indirectly (or directly) passes it off as original content, otherwise known as plagiarism.

Plagiarism is defined as, "the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own." For example, think of Melania Trump's speech earlier this year at the Republican National Convention. Mrs. Trump blatantly plagiarized Michelle Obama's speech (literally word for word at some points) from the Democratic National Convention in 2008.

Teachers have been stamping the words, "I Will Not Plagiarize" on our foreheads since middle school. Every English paper in my high school had to go through TurnItIn.com and be checked against other students work just to ensure that the words on your paper were in fact your words.

So what's the difference between stealing someones idea or thoughts and being inspired by them? Being inspired means that you took someone else's idea and grew your own from within it, while plagiarism is the blatant rewording (or sometimes not even rewording) of another's words or thoughts to make them look like your own. The media is rife with the latter, which is to be expected when thousands of news organizations are reporting on the same story.

Unfortunately, like main stream media, some social media users also thirst for views and attention so they too resort to "copying" the content of others in hopes of attaining traffic. Is it plagiarism? Maybe. But after all, "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery," right?