Throughout life, we were always taught to treat people the way we want to be treated. Obviously there are times where emotions overtake us and we forget all of that. We forget about it being all fun and games until someone gets hurt, we forget about treating people the way we want to be treated and we also forget that other people have feelings and some people are fighting battles that we aren’t sure of. So, while you’re sending screenshots to your friends in your group text, think about that person behind the screenshot. Think about how they would feel if they knew what you were saying about them.
People’s lives are beginning to revolve around social media. Everyone is tangled up in this web (literally and figuratively). We post what we are doing, what we are wearing, who we are with ... everything. We post it all on social media. But there’s a funny thing about it: we post things because we like them. We post selfies because we like the photo of ourselves, we post a picture of where we are because we think it’s the place to be, we post pictures of what we are wearing because we like our outfit, we post pictures of our friends because we love them and so on. The funny thing isn’t that we post them because we like them, the funny thing is (hint: it isn’t really funny) that people take these posts, screenshot them and send them in a group chat or direct message them to their friends just to make fun of people.
Here’s something else...people don’t just post for themselves. They post to feel some sort of acceptance. They post the Instagram picture, Facebook status and Tweet to show people that they are having a good time, they’re showing their followers that they too have a social life and they are trying to prove that they are cool in their own way or in the way society says they should be. There’s a heart, a thumbs up and now Facebook even has reaction features. If you don’t like it, scroll past it.
Sometimes posting things on social media for people is a hard thing to do. Face it––we have all been there. We sit there with our thumbs twitching all over the keyboard as we brainstorm a perfect caption, sometimes we stare aimlessly at the photo wondering if it’s even cute and there have been numerous amounts of times where we tap the photo looking to see the original versus the filter we applied. A lot of thought goes into these posts, a lot of people think that posting something cool will eventually get them the attention that they are seeking, a lot of people use social media as a way to express themselves. So, if most people use social media as a platform of acceptance or a platform for their personal expression, why do other people think it’s okay to degrade them in secrecy? Social media and the web has given cowards a place to destroy levels of confidence behind a screen. Sure, we’re all guilty of sending posts of people we don’t like to our friends, but now that bullying and suicide due to bullying has become such a serious thing, people need to start taking the feelings of others into consideration.
I was inspired to write this article because I was observing the people’s conversations and the I noticed that there are more ways to destroy someone’s self confidence in less than one minute. When I was in middle school, it was rumors and gossip that caused the most trouble. Nowadays, it’s rumors and gossip on top of social media and the anonymous people-trashing platforms that not only cause trouble but force people to feel worthless and leave people lost feeling like they don’t have a purpose.
The next time you send a screenshot or a direct message to your friends, think about the person behind the screenshot. How would they feel if they knew what you were saying?
