Let's face the facts and accept that social media is a disease. It's a plague that has sickened so many people across the globe of all ages. The constant stream of threads, stories, likes, and retweets can be somewhat overbearing, though we may not notice it. In my early years of high school, I was an avid social media user, solely for the fact that it was there and I could put out my random thoughts to no-one in particular, really. But as time went on, I would post less frequently and make more quality posts that I knew would get the most engagements among my followers. So why did that start to happen? Why did I care so much what others thought of me? And when did everyone literally become the same person?

Though I cannot pinpoint the exact moment when I started obsessing over what other people thought of me, I know that it was a time when I was tired of being so antisocial and wanting to branch out of my friend group. Becoming heavily involved in the fine arts department and clubs at Marian meant I was going to meet so many new people. I didn't want to come off as stuck-up or weird, so I tailored to my audience. I became this "badass" persona that I so badly I wanted to be, not who I was. By that point, I was OBSESSED with social media. I was always caught up on what was going on in everyone's lives, the news, the latest trends, memes...I'll admit I'm still a D1 memer. But the point is that I was wanting to be different, but still fit in at the same time. I was wanting to be liked so badly by others, because humans have an inherent need to be loved.

Instant gratification is so prevalent in our culture that we become disappointed or even stressed when something we post doesn't get the attention we feel it deserves; some people might even go as far as to find statistics on the best times to post. On social media, we don't view people as people anymore; everyone's value is attached to a number, whether it be likes, retweets, or followers. There have been instances where people I know will go out with people/events solely for the Instagram posts. Color me thoroughlyconfused. What's the point of even going out with people if you don't put your phone down for a few hours and genuinely enjoy each others' time and make memories? It's that drive to be popular among so many people that infects our minds, and to show people what we want them to see and think that we are a certain way. And (even though there's over 5000 years of human history meaning nothing is really original) everyone has lost their originality and uniqueness. Our generation is keen on being "so relatable" through food, TV, relationships, and how friendless/antisocial we all are. These topics usually stem from a negative place, too...excluding food, keep sharing those Tasty videos on Facebook, guys.

The amount of posts I see of people wishing they had someone to talk to about anything and everything breaks my heart, and I mean that. I have seen people post they have loads of friends, for sure, but they don't feel like they can really talk to people without being judged because, again, there is a need to keep appearances. It sucks hearing them say they don't really have even one close friend or someone to hang with on a regular basis. They turn to social media begging to have people be with them and pay attention to them, when the logical thing to do would be go out and do something about it rather than sit and complain to the world. But pride--I would go as far as to even say fear--gets in the way of happiness all too often. And trust that if I see one of you on my feed asking anyone to hang out with you I will be there in a heartbeat, I'm always down to spend time with people (even if we've drifted apart).

When relationships don't work out, we tend to blame the other person for not meeting expectations we project on to them that stem from our own individual needs and wants. Major reality check: you can't be in a healthy relationship until you are happy independent of a relationship! We can get so caught up in other people's relationships that we glorify people who are in them, aka "goals" (with the heart-eyes emoji, of course). You could actually meet your soulmate when you're in an unhappy place, but the relationship wouldn't work out at that moment because you are already in a toxic mindset striving after those "relationship goals" everyone is so obsessed with, thinking that a relationship will fix your life. Using someone else as your crutch for your own happiness is a one-way ticket to disappointment. I'll admit, I have been in that place in the past, and none of the following relationships worked out because I wasn't entirely happy being independent. I was wanting and wishing for someone to spice up my life because I was bored being "alone" (stupid). Now that I have plenty of adventure going on in my life and that I am more comfortable with myself, I'm perfectly happy being single, but wouldn't be opposed to a relationship if it were to happen because I want someone to come along for the ride and join them on theirs, not have them be the catalyst to my enjoyment.

Another major issue with social media is the fact that there is no privacy anymore, unless you don't go on it/aren't involved. People can see who you follows you, who you follow, what posts you liked, who's posts you liked, at what time you liked the posts, it's extremely stalker-ish. Over the years of my social media obsession, I became a grade-A stalker, being able to find people solely by what they look like and even the most microscopic amount of information. I'm scared of myself, really, but I don't abuse this "skill" because I have an immense respect for people's privacy. If I'm going to stalk a friend on social media, I'll straight up tell them I'm going to stalk them or give some indication that that is what I was doing. I can remember going as far as to refrain myself from liking certain posts in order to keep up my image. Um, who cares? Now I don't even care if I know the person or not when I like a post--if I like it, then I'm gonna like it, sue me.

Negativity is fine in small doses if it's reallyentertaining. No amount of complaining is going to get people to like you more because people don't like to cling to negativity, even though it seems to be a trend. Keeping things to yourself speaks levels to the person you are. Refrain from crowd-sourcing yourself; not everyone needs to be constantly updated on what someone said about you, bragging about yourself, or struggles you're going through in that very moment. If I were to post things going on in my day, it would turn into "Livvy's Daily Novel" because something crazy happens literally every, single, day. It's fun and intriguing to keep some mystery to your persona.

Looking back on my oldest Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram posts is like seeing the viewpoint of a completely different person--meaning I was just as cringe-y and awful as everyone else was when they first got social media. Now, I'm consistently roasted on my Instagram because of how cringe-y I was being, but I can't help laughing and joining in on the fun. In a sense, it's refreshing to see how much I really didn't care if my posts got likes or comments; I was just posting for my own sake as a way to remember what was going on in my life then (with far too many hashtags). I was just being me. And now that I am back into the mindset that I am solely posting something for my own memory--because anyone that knows me knows I might as well be diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's--I'm much more stress free about appearing a certain way to certain people. Being with someone in person is much more different than perceiving them through social media and even texting (which is a topic for a different article).

Though I have been dogging on social media this whole article, I'm not saying stop using it. I'm just cautioning you to lay off a little. Yes, you should care what other people think about you, it's unrealistic to say that you don't care what others think of you. But you shouldn't let what people think of you dictate and define you. The key to happiness is to be present; present with friends, yourself, and in general. We stress about the future and worry that things won't happen or come true. Things really do fall into place; not always naturally, you do have to do some work to get places in life, I guess. But it pays to become your own person. Don't lose yourself in the hype of social media, lose yourself in the moment and say "Why not?" more often. And yes, "lose yourself in the moment" is a reference to Eminem, but he's right!