Born in 94’, my mind has been tangled in social media. With that being said, I feel as though many of us young adults have our minds engrained in social media on a level we aren’t ready to admit to ourselves just yet.

Growing Up

I remember getting my first cell phone in eighth-grade. I had, well, maybe fifteen numbers total: my mom, dad, sisters, cousins, grandparents and aunts and uncles, and my few closest friends. Life was simple, however, I still had the same common focuses; school, family, friendship. The only need to use my phone was for actually talking or texting my friends, you know, actual conversation.

As I grew into high school, networking became the thing to do. We moved on from the primitive Myspace. Facebook was big at the time, Twitter was taking off, and most of my friends were starting to get Instagram accounts. We started to take more pictures; school dances, photo projects, starting to experience more of life. Posting photos and statuses of the parties, the freedom of having your own car, first dates, new items, plain old, good times. I know I am not alone in saying it became a part of my norm, it was accepted, it was trendy to be on these forms of networking. It got even weirder when our parents were starting to get into it.

College, I think, may have gotten worse for a lot of those in my generation. Preached with the saying “it’s all about who you know”, myself included, was subject to intense focus on the ever growing image of who I was on the outside, the exterior, the profile. It got even weirder when our parents were starting to get into it. LinkedIn was a new social norm, for everyone who was just “trying to get out there”, composed of a scarily familiar layout, and even tinted the same shade of blue as a familiar latch in which we were already very common.

Wrapping Your Head Around It

Now I had always lived my life just kind of posting whatever, saying whatever, because it was just how I felt, it was random, sporadic. Most of all, it did not mean that much to me, and I was hoping it would not mean that much to whoever was viewing. Simply put, I had gotten these forms of media, just to have these forms of media, a factor for inclusion, or acceptance is what I, and I’m guessing many of you thought.

Since college, I have seen many problems with social media, as to why this article was started in the first place. A girl once told me, she could not trust me simply because I was always posting many pictures of partying, girls, etc. on my profile. To me, this felt a little cold, simply because I had not thought much of my own profile at the time. As stated before, I was hoping those who viewed would not take it seriously, as I did not.

Another time I questioned social media, I took a girl hiking, sort of a date. We had both talked about our excitement, and it was the perfect day out. However, the whole time, she had been taking selfies. A simple hour up and hour down, she stated, “I just want to take some nice pictures.” We did not make it to the top… I started paying a little more attention to this as time went on, questioning the art of living in the moment.

Some of my friends, myself included, I have found sometimes will not post certain things simply because they will not get enough likes, or enough attention in general. “I can’t post this now, it’s too late” or “let me get the best caption”, are parameters and rules that we as a culture have created ourselves in order to set a social norm of acceptable social media behavior, something I would like to call, bologna. The unwritten rules governing how we act socially, especially on our own personal profiles, is something that I feel we should have never become comfortable with.

This is when I started to really take a deeper look. It had always been there, lingering in the back of my mind with every post, every like, every comment. What does this do for me? How does this make me feel inside? And I guess, well, for me at least, there is only one word to describe it…

Façade: an outward appearance that is maintained to conceal a less pleasant or creditable reality.

What Is Really Important

Understandably, social media has helped me keep in touch with very close friends and family from all across the country, at a single click. Many who I have not seen in quite some time, say they’ve seen what I’ve been up to, and they appreciate it as much as I do. For the rest of it however, why is there a need?

What I noticed about our generation was that, for the most part, we pay attention to a lot of the “noise” that circulates around what is our new norm. From the popular posts, to the pretty girls and guys, to the drama going on within our sphere of peers and connections that we may not really even be that connected to. We, as a generation, have become accustomed to hearing and seeing this noise day in and day out, and simply, to me, it seems a little unnecessary.

Seeing social media from the start, it has been interesting to see it grow and spread through the minds of all of us. The Holidays have reminded me of what is really important in my life: my close friends, who are actually there for me, my family, who I will love through any storm, and my passions, which define me as a person and are the core of my beliefs.

Emotionally speaking, the noise has caused a lot of chaos in our society today, and well, finally noticing that, I have decided to limit my use of social media to what truly seems important to me. To me, I think back at how simple my life was, and it really could be that simple now, if I just blocked out the noise to begin with. So drunk off of the mixture from our tainted perception, I am now finally sobering up to take a look at reality again.

Most of all this Holiday season, think of what is important, keeping your loved ones close. I challenge you to do the same, or at least, evaluate your life and how social media plays a factor for the better or worst.

Food for Thought