The social media around us is honestly overwhelming. Almost everyone and their mom is on Facebook right now. It would be hard to find someone who has not had a social media account at least once in their life. On top of that, there are so many types of platforms for each kind of person. If you just want to connect with people, Facebook is the way to go. Want to show the world the best snippets of your life through pictures? Instagram is for you. Do you want to show all the parts of your life, from the really cute flower you see walking to class to you dying at 2 a.m. from not doing your homework? Get yourself a Snapchat. There is pretty much a best fit type of each personality. I didn’t really notice all the nuances they have as soon as a lot of other people.

Up until the beginning of senior year, I didn’t touch social media―besides Facebook because who didn’t make a profile when they were younger? While I did have a Facebook, I didn’t really use it for anything besides messaging people or posting a new status once a year. It was just a thing everyone had and I wanted one. If you tried to learn about me by stalking my profile during my junior year, you wouldn’t come out with anything besides the city I live in. It honestly didn’t have an ounce of current facts about me. Even my profile picture was from eighth grade. When all these other platforms were created and became extremely popular, my friends would try to convince to make all these profiles. My friends’ requests were no match to my level of stubbornness and resistance. I always said the same things, “I hate putting my life out there” or “I hate taking pictures of myself for everyone to see”.

However, it wasn’t that I disliked the social media and its possibilities. The issue was that I wasn’t confident enough to use it. There was always a fear of people’s judgement. I was in fear the people would find me annoying or weird. It took me a long time to finally make it over this nagging feeling and I was not expecting it. What broke my six-year record of minimal social media activity was a beautiful program called Questbridge. When I became a Questbridge finalist, they sent me an email to join the Facebook group. All I wanted was a place to ask questions about the program. Instead, I found a strong community of people with similar goals and dreams. As my friend list began to be filled up with people from the program, my confidence grew. I finally changed my profile picture in years and I felt free. Some people might change their profile picture with ease, but I was so filled with anxiety. I slowly increased my use by actually sharing pictures and articles, adding photos, and writing statuses. I wasn’t scared anymore to enjoy the full experience social media has to offer and created a Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest and Instagram. Social media was the way I connected to so many people at my college and helped ease the transition. I embraced my weirdness and my annoyingness (kind of sorry to everyone that sees my billions of Bernie, Trump and Hillary posts). Through my political posts and sharing my articles, I show the world my personality and my beliefs. It was freedom.

I used to hate all of social media and the people who overuse it. Now I’m the person who needs to physically have their phone taken away to focus. Even as I write this article, I have been distracted by Snapchat and Facebook ten times. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.