Hello again guys!
From the title you can probably tell this isn’t going to be a beauty post, its just a little nugget of my thoughts on teen life and the internet.
A rather flattering picture of me on my first day of school.. also beginning “teen life” (dun dun duuuhh) ….By the way i do not have a glowing yellow eye…That is just a side affect of my mums fantastic photography!)..
.. JAZZ HAANDS!!
In case you didn’t know I am currently age 14, dead in between what i’d class as childhood (4-12) and adulthood (18 upwards). To me teen years are some of the most testing and odd years of someones life. I do think that times have changed a lot since (for example) since my parents were at school, lots of things we have to deal with now and that are considered a “normal” part of teen life today(or just things that our parents or people older than us just simply can’t understand) seem alien to others. I think the main change has happened in the short space of 2 years. On February 1, 2012 a social media site called Facebook was launched to the public.
Facebook was one really big when I started high school. My friends would say “get Facebook! its great” or “did you see what Boris put on Facebook last night?!” . I felt secluded from them and as if I was missing out on a lot because I didn’t have Facebook. I wasn’t entirely sure on what it entailed and what Facebook was but after months of nagging at my parents they agreed for me to get Facebook. I said the main reason I wanted it was to keep in touch with some people I met at an audition so my Mum said “yes”. When I first got Facebook I was really underwhelmed and thought it was rather crappio but unfortunately after weeks of going on it, it was becoming addictive. Obviously if I would of said this to a person 20 years ago, (that I was pretty much addicted to a social media website) I would’ve been called nutty. This is partially because Geocities, (supposedly one of the first ever social media sites) was created in 1994, this would mean that 20 years ago social media didn’t even exist. In fact 32 years ago in 1989 British engineer Tim Berners-Lee began work at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research, in Switzerland), on what was to become the World Wide Web. The world wide web itself is only (technically) 32 years old!
Why does Social Media affect Teens most?
Personally I think that Social media really affects teens most because we have grown up with it. There’s sites like tumblr where things that we view daily and what we consider normal, another person wont. For example the concept of fan “shipping” or “fandoms”. I personally don’t see the harm in doing this but when I tried to explain it to my mum she just thought it was an absurd thing to do or be a part of and I know its the same with a lot of my friends parents. I’m not saying every person over the age of 30 is a total dummy when it comes to internet concepts but I would say that a lot of adults don’t understand things as much as teens or are as accepting of it. The effect of this is that our views on whats normal is really different to that of say 20 (or maybe even 10) years ago. We also have sites like twitter that allow us to talk to celebrity’s (or “tweet” them). This is a thing that is good and bad. For as many good fans that there are there is a handful of people who purposely set out to send “hate messages” to people, (celebrity or not). These people are commonly known as “internet trolls”. We also then have people who are “catfish” (who pretend to be someone there not via a social media website). The Internets a wonderful but scary place.
We view swearing, hate messages and general harshness on a day to day basis and we consider it normal or just a part of being on an internet site. I’m sure if you told an adult about all this they would simply say “delete your account if it bothers you” but the fact is after a while, it doesn’t bother us, we just accept it and “keep scrolling”. We are also easily influenced by things we see and people we see. Sites such as instagram allow people to share pictures. Celebrity’s also tend to have instagram. They may post a picture of themselves in a bikini or in swimwear. The photo itself is probably edited so much that the person looks nothing like they do in real life but we still look at them and see them as role models and “perfect people”. Obviously not all people are like this and neither are all celebrity’s but again there are a heck of a lot of people who do.
Having Social media in the palm of your hand… with great power comes great need to stalk Johnny Depps twitter account…(the mans a legend.. how can you not?!) 😉
Basically….
I think that social media is a fantastic thing to have WHEN USED PROPERLY. You may also be thinking what made me want to write this post in the first place? Well, this week was the school holidays and i noticed that at the start of this week I was wasting my evenings scrolling through Facebook and peoples twitter feeds, it just made me think of what life would be like 20 years ago, what would I have been doing then? who knows, I may of actually ventured out my room into the outside world? 😉
I know that I really have just barely scratched the surface of what social media is but I think that no matter how many blog posts I do I will probably never be able to explain or get my head around the internet. I personally love social media sites like Facebook because they allow us to talk to and keep up with our friends (which is what facebook is supposed to be about) but I think it is difficult to grow up in the “social media age” because of how vulnerable it makes us to the public and how easily you can find so much out about people. but of course we don’t NEED to get Facebook or any social media sites and they are there to be used properly, just some people don’t.
My advice?
Don’t get too caught up in the world of social media. If you don’t like what you see or what someones saying to you, you don’t have to listen. Inactivate your account or (if on Facebook) block or delete the person. Who actually cares if you don’t get 50 likes on your profile? If someone isn’t friends with you because you don’t have over 300 hundred Facebook friends that’s just sad on there part. Having so many likes on your profile picture wont get you a GCSE and similarly stalking Johnny Depps twitter account wont help you pass your math test (sad but true). My advice? keep calm and give yourself a break from social media. Don’t let your phone rule your life. In fact I challenge you to not go on Facebook (or any other social media site) (except bloglovin of course 😉 ) and just have a break, go out and socialize or pick up your revison book. do something today that future you will thank you for!
I spy with my little eye…
A floating yellow head without a body….
!SMILEY!
(: —————————————————————————————- 🙂
SO THAT JUST ABOUT CONCLUDES THIS POST!
I hope this has been helpful to at least one person!
Xxxxxxxx See you all soon, have a great bonfire night guys! xxxxxxX
WhatTheBeck 