Eight years ago, I was in eighth grade. It was 2008, and I had just gotten my first real cell phone that was not given to me for “emergency purposes.” In 2008, Facebook had just gotten popular around school, and the general rule was that we had to be friends with our parents on Facebook if we wanted to have one. My phone had Internet capabilities, but it was still a time when clicking on the Internet browser immediately sent me into a panic that it was going to charge my parents hundreds of dollars for a seven-second mix up. AIM was my main form of communication with my friends, who updated their away status something along the lines of, “Shopping with Alexaaaaaaaaaa, text it,” every time they put their hand-me-down desktop PC to sleep. We carried around our cell phones, iPods and digital cameras with us everywhere, because iPhones were astronomically expensive and were only featured on trendy television shows, so three separate devices were necessary. Limewire was how we illegally downloaded our music to make mix CDs for our friends and crushes, and you were not considered cool unless you had the first Nintendo DS Lite so that you could play "Nintendogs," "Cooking Mama" and "Animal Crossing."
Eight years later, my youngest sister is in eighth grade. She has had an iPhone since she graduated from elementary school, but has had a cell phone since she was in third or fourth grade. She has also had an Instagram for 101 weeks and has 528 followers. She Snapchats absolutely everything, and just made a Twitter last week. My youngest sister has a laptop and a tablet, and is completely adept at Microsoft Word, Powerpoint and several Photoshop programs. She watches most of her television on Netflix and has countless Pinterest boards dedicated to fashion, pop culture and even her future wedding.
When I was in eighth grade, I had my fair share of drama within my friend group. Two of our friends would go to the local mall without everyone else on the weekends and would take pictures together on the photobooth app at the Apple store and would print the pictures and put them up in their lockers for all of us to see on Monday. Or the cute guy in our band class made three girls the same mix tape of his original music for Valentine's Day and got caught.
Eight years later, my youngest sister was called into the office last week because of drama within her friend group. One of the girls had screenshotted a Snapchat my sister had sent in September and resurfaced it to use as a way to get back at my sister for blocking her on social media. My sister found out through her other friends that this girl had been screenshotting her Snapchats and showing them around, teasing her for being pathetic and lame, among other nasty things. So my sister blocked this girl from seeing her content, which made the other girl upset, which led her to the principal. And, unfortunately, this is one of the simpler issues that my sister has had to deal with regarding social media this year.
But, social media has not just invaded the lives of 13-year-olds. I am 20 years old and feel immense validation in how many likes I get on my Instagram selfies or on how many favorites my tweets get on "Bachelor" Mondays. I find myself combing through people’s favorites on Twitter to try and discern why they may not be texting me back, and create alternate meanings for every Snapchat story I see. I cannot drink a latte without Snapchatting it first, and I use at least three different photo editing apps before uploading a picture to Instagram. I have thousands of pictures on Facebook spanning from 2008–present, and I have more than 900 followers on Twitter. I have two Tumblr accounts, two Wordpress blogs, six email addresses and more than 4,000 pictures saved on my iPhone. I carry a phone charger with me at all times because often my phone is down to 20 percent by lunchtime because I am constantly using it to look up random things on the Internet, check social media or am streaming music on Spotify or Pandora.
Social media is an incredible tool that has completely changed the way people communicate. Companies have become much more transparent due to social media, which has created more brand loyalty among consumers. Everyday, people use platforms such as Instagram and YouTube to promote themselves and their passions, and many of them have found fame and success due to social media followings. In a day, more than 100 million hours of content is uploaded to YouTube, and millions of people have found their significant others on online dating apps and websites. Social media has connected people from every nook and cranny on Earth together, and has completely shifted society into a digital age.
I cannot sit here and discredit social media because I would be a hypocrite. I am just as active on social media as the next person, and I will never see myself as someone who can completely cut myself off from the networks and still feel connected to people. I can, however, give my little sister advice.
My first piece of advice is to live in the moment. If your first instinct is to Snapchat something when you’re trying to have an experience, you do not have a healthy relationship with social media. You only get to live these memories once, and wasting them on trying to perfectly capture the essence of the misspelled name on your Starbucks cup is not how you’re going to make memories.
My second piece of advice would be to keep things real. So often, people only project the happiest parts of their lives on social media, completely hiding away any and all troubles they may be facing. If you are having a bad day, you are allowed to talk about it. If you find yourself comparing your life to someone else’s strictly based on what they present on social media, remember that only the picture-worthy pieces end up on Instagram, and they probably are going through things, just like you.
Finally, do not post anything that you would feel embarrassed about if your teacher or grandmother or boss found a few years down the road. The Internet is forever, so as soon as you post something, it is findable for life. It is so easy to get wrapped up in social media and the life you have created online, but just remember that the picture you take with your friends at a party may be fun and carefree now, but in 10 years, you probably won’t find it nostalgic with memories of that night, but you’ll regret putting that online for everyone to see.
I cannot predict how our world is going to continue to change with social media. Every day new ideas and trends start, further shifting us into an overpowering digital age. But, I do know that sometimes, taking a break from it all is the only way to find perspective. Leave your phone at home, and go for a hike with your friends without having a photo shoot at the top of the trail. Take a book outside and just read, without stopping every few chapters to scroll through Instagram. Your phone will be there when you get back, but the memories you could be creating without the weight of social media following you around? You cannot get those back.
