Anonymous Contribution for Chapter 3 (Male): “Social Media”
For me, it started on ITV. I was 14, and this was when I started thinking about girls and that whole aspect of life. So, I made that first Gmail account, using it to get to know some of my classmates. It started innocent -some emailing, some chatting- which we would do all the time. I’d log in after school because that was where we had internet, and it wouldn’t be uncommon to be chatting with 4 or 5 girls at the same time.
There was also Google+. Initially, I didn’t post, instead, I just watched, liked, and commented on people’s stuff. Over time, however, I began to want to curate this image for myself. I was about 14 or 15. Before that, I never really thought about myself: how I looked, my body, how I dressed - anything really. In the beginning, I know I never cared about those things. Then, this change slowly started happening. This is not uncommon for anybody who's hitting puberty, but I became obsessed with how I looked, how I dressed, and what my hair looked like. Initially, it was just an image I had to maintain online, but it became something I obsessed over even in my “real” life.
When Google+ started out, you didn’t share all that many pictures. Instagram is a photo app, Google+ wasn’t necessarily. It was more about the wittiest status update, which is what I started doing. I’m not even sure what I posted, and in retrospect it’s embarrassing. I would scour Tumblr and other websites to help me come up with something that was “deep,” trying to get people, especially peers, to comment. I thought I was so cool. I was trying to curate this image that I was sophisticated and intelligent, while at the same time I started to become obsessed with how I looked. It was really bad, and I became extremely self-conscious. I wouldn’t say it crept into my mental or emotional health initially, although if I posted something and it didn’t get feedback, I’d feel down about it and sometimes take down the post, but it didn’t particularly phase me yet.
When I hit Grade 10 or 11: Instagram became the new cool Social Media platform. The transition from witty statuses to a photo-based posting alongside the witty caption changed everything. Before this, my looks and identity were just an insecurity. With Instagram, it really
starts off. The big difference was that while still obsessing over my image, I also got to curate this fake identity of myself. Instagram heightened what Google+ started.
I posted a lot of selfies and thinking back, it’s humiliating. I got addicted to the likes, and the validation it gave me to get lots of likes, which would make me feel less insecure about how I looked for a while. When I made that post and I started getting likes, comments, and direct messages about the post, I got a dopamine rush. I could not stop thinking about the next post I would make to get that same rush, and if I didn’t get as many likes as I felt I should have, I’d obsess over what I did wrong. Why is no one liking it? Don’t I have any friends? It began to affect me emotionally if I saw that a post was not doing well. It got so bad that I started figuring out the most opportune time to post. [Instagram now markets apps for this purpose that monitor follower counts, “hot times” to post, as well as which followers are most active on your account.] I timed my posting, monetizing every possible aspect of the post to curate as many likes as possible. I wrote long captions for some posts, trying to work on the sophisticated image I was portraying. I was trying to be more popular. Acquiring a certain reputation on Instagram that carried over into other social interactions and the validation was great.
But it was hell on how I looked at myself; I was already self-conscious about how I looked, and I wasn’t able to think away from that. It wore me down. Obviously, I started comparing myself to all the other accounts. If someone posted something with more likes, comments, and interactions, I’d question why I wasn't popular enough, not attractive enough, buying into the mindset that if you don’t make a lot of posts, don’t get a lot of likes, I’d be a failure and a loser. I felt as though I did something wrong. I’d ask myself what I could do to fix this, which kind of killed me.
Girls made everything worse. I was self-conscious before, and they just heightened all of that, as I constantly sought out that validation from not only my peers but also that girl I liked. If people didn’t react to my posts, or worse, comment on someone else’s post, I’d obsess over those posts, see who was commenting. If the other guys had a witty caption, I’d think, “Why didn’t I think of that?!” I was really getting into this rut on Instagram, comparing myself to other people. It was hell for my emotional health.
I was never depressed, but there were certainly a lot of down moments, I was an emotional rollercoaster for years. The tiniest things would set me off. It was no way to live in any sense. Perhaps I was depressed. I don’t know. To not get the validation I needed was more than feeling down. I was devastated. It ruined my entire day. It ruined several days. Until I had my next successful post. It was hell, honestly.
I wonder when all that started changing. Maybe when I grew up. It was really bad in the beginning- grades 10 and 11, but grade 12 not so much. After I graduated it only continued to improve. At this point, I don’t care anymore. I will still post from time to time, but I don’t care about the likes, it doesn’t affect me at all. If no one comments I’ll be slightly disappointed but only because I make posts about things that genuinely interest me now. I will post about my occupation, so I may over-post about things that interest me. Now, when I post, getting no feedback is an annoyance, it doesn’t ruin my next four days. So, I think that I have gotten over the emotional problems that came with social media.
However, there are some things that still have stayed with me. I used to crave validation. To some extent, I still do. The validation used to be only online, but slowly it started creeping into my personal life, and I still struggle with it. Essentially, Social Media gave me the ‘entertainer persona,’ and I sought that attention, especially from people I liked, such as girls. But over time it went beyond that, where I needed to stand out in some sense in any social gathering. It’s dumb, but I would need to be the center of attention. I would need to have the world revolve around me. When I was younger, not getting that validation would make me depressed. Angry. I would leave social situations where that need wasn’t being met. I still struggle with that, but I deal with it a lot better now.
The after-effects are still with me now and I’m sure they’re going to be with me- hopefully not forever, -but they probably will be if I am being honest with myself. As for the identity part, I’m still conscious of how I look, definitely. I suppose I still need that validation from other people. I still haven’t gotten past that. A lot of the problems that came with it are still with me but diminished in a lot of senses.
Thinking ahead, I don’t want any kid to go through that. I would have a conversation with kids about this. It’s hard at that age, but they need to understand, [especially in the digital age] that there are things in life more important than how you look and dress. Even if you get past the physical part, to cultivating that persona on your account: it amounts to the same thing. It’s completely fake. It’s totally a facade. If you need that social interaction, use social media to interact with your friends. But try to explain that it is not meant for more than that. We use social media because our friends are there. So why are you cultivating this fake persona of yourself? Don’t you want your friends to know what makes you tick? What you’re actually like? If they’re your real friends, then you won’t need to fake it. They’ll like you for you. It's cliché, but it’s true. Parents should be a lot more involved and stricter about young teens using Instagram or other social media.
There is a place for social media. A healthy way to use it. I now follow accounts pertaining to my profession or pages that inspire me. I follow National Geographics. I follow people who do cool things. Now it has that benefit of inspiration and even the practical side of communicating with people who are in a similar line of work as me. But thinking back, I fail to see what benefit it had for me then, to be honest. Once you get caught up in that whole culture, it’s pretty toxic. It’s hard to get out of, and it stays with you for years later. It leads to low self- esteem, negative body image, identity issues, hating yourself. It just wasn’t healthy; you shouldn’t have that outlook on yourself. Things that were more important took a back seat. There is more to someone than what they look like and what their page looks like on Instagram. I think that’s what I want kids on there to realize: It’s not as simple and easy-going as it looks.
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Anonymous Contribution for Chapter 3: “The Influence of Social Media”
I got my first electronic device at 8, an mp3 player, at the age of 14 I was given my brothers old iPod 6. I created my first Gmail account at the age of 14, a glorious google plus account (which they now have taken down, thank goodness). No, my parents didn’t know but with the help of my older brother, I now had access to the internet and the biggest social media platform known to Hutterites my age, at the time. My parents found out eventually.
For those that know me now would never believe me when I say that I posted, a lot. I wasn’t shy, I wasn’t scared and not that you should be but when I say scared I mean I wasn’t careful. I wasn’t aware of the full affect or damage that could be done by this seemingly harmless page. I was naïve. I saw google plus as a place where I could stay connected with my friends and a place where I could meet new ones. I was very open and not very private. In one post specifically.
It was a post where it asked people to be open about their feelings pertaining to the LGBTQ community. Me, being a ‘freshie’ so to speak, wasn’t aware of Hutterite’s stance against this controversy, personally I didn’t have anything against gay people. And like I said I wasn’t hesitant to hide my feelings of thoughts, so I commented stating my opinion.
Another Hutterite had seen my comment and had shown it to my parents. They sat me down and we had a long, long discussion about the comment and my place as a Hutterite. I was grounded, lost all privileges concerning social media, and had my iPod taken away. Needless to say, looking back, its sad that that had to happen for my parents to talk to me about such things.
If Social Media were a person, this person would be very opinionated, shallow, loud, and just all of over the place. The internet is a place where people can share with the world whatever they want the internet is a very manipulative person. Especially to naive young people.
My advice is for people first dabbling into social media is to be educated, careful that the things that they see wont have control over they’re thoughts and emotions. Be careful that you don’t let the first opinion you see on a new subject persuade you to belief that that opinion is right.
When I started getting back into social media -meaning Instagram since that was the new craze- I was much more careful. I didn’t post and I had a private account but I was also much more aware of my control of the content on my phone, I could control the things I saw and to speak frankly I wasn’t too smart about it. I never fully committed to inappropriate content but I can’t say that I am innocent and still be honest. But I will say this, a lot of things that were considered taboo that shouldn’t have been I was okay with speaking about them with other people.
My experience with the internet and social media impacted me positively I would have to say. I have become more confident with things that I think should be talked about. I now understand how the world works a little bit better. I now use the internet to my advantage of broadening my knowledge whereas beforehand I (in a way) let the internet and technology control me. I do wish I would’ve learned certain things through the right connections. I do wish my parents would’ve talked with me about certain things or prepared me for what I was heading into. After all it was kind of their job. Social media has the ability to control us and we need to be careful and educated enough so that we use this technology to our advantage and let it control us. I learned through mistakes and firsthand experience. Not everyone has to learn that way.
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Anonymous Contribution for Chapter 3: “Which Area of Technology Has Impacted Me the Most?”
The area concerning technology which has impacted me the most as a teenager is the most obvious one: Social Media. And whilst one may argue the pros against the cons here, for me personally the cons almost constantly tend to outweigh the pros. The seesaw has never, ever been balanced between the two. In recent months I’ve come to identify the reasoning behind my stance, and they go as follows:
The first and biggest one being- digital manipulation. We are all being digitally manipulated every single day; if one uses a smartphone that is. This happens in many obvious ways, but also in subtle ways we don’t even realize. The most obvious being the “digital friendships” we form online. This is often people we don’t know and have never met in person.
It’s easy to compile a long list of “friends” or high following on social media, in a short amount of time, but we as humans are not wired for the concept of “digital friendships.” I am guilty of having fallen into this trap. Where my rising number in followers gave me the sense and feeling that my popularity was also rising. The more follow requests I was receiving, the better. It didn’t matter if I did not know the person, the more users I could get to follow me, the more publicity, likes, comments and attention overall my posts were getting. This is something I shamefully strived for when I first joined the social media realm- recognition.
You please your fans, in hopes that they spread the word about you, so that you can get more people on your social media bandwagon. What’s worse, is that I was under the illusion that these people were my “friends”, and vice versa, simply because we followed each other online. People who were complete strangers, whom I had never seen let alone heard of, and I was expected to go along with it, because to have everyone be my follower, I had to be everyone’s friend. It was almost as if I had convinced myself that a mutual following meant mutual respect.
• Friend request: Thirteen- year-old girl from Alberta who plays the harmonica and rides horses in her spare time? Confirm.
· Friend request: Part time rancher from Montana who wears a cowboy hat and cowboy boots, raises beef cattle, owns three dogs, but also has a hidden talent for cooking/baking? Confirm.
· Friend request: Ex-Hutterite from Saskatchewan currently living in the mountains working as a lumberjack. Confirm.
· Friend request: Person with cat as profile photo. Zero posts. Zero information of whereabouts, interests or proof of whether the profile is being run by an actual human or the cat in the profile photo. Confirm.
No, I didn’t know well over half the people I was giving access to my account, BUT they were all Hutterites or had been Hutterites at some point so to me it was “okay.” All I knew was that I was competing in the race of popularity, and the rising number of followers would get me there. What would happen once I reached it was uncertain, but at least I had a goal: Get to the top. Make as many “friends” as possible. Followers = likes. And since they were my “friends”, they would tell more people about my profile, and recruit more users to shoot me a friend request. I had unknowingly created a never-ending vicious cycle of narcissism that I didn’t even realize I had created, and it only got worse over time.
On to my second point- “The dopamine hit.” Every time we post something, we get a small dopamine hit. This happens whenever someone likes, comments or reshares the content that we post. This in turn gets us to contribute even more content that's going to get us more likes, comments, etcetera. It’s an infinity loop that will continue for forever and ever into eternity as long as we keep feeding the addiction.
It was always a huge booster for me when someone commented on one of my photos, selfies or replied to one of my Instagram stories. Receiving compliments from people, even if it was people I didn’t know, was my biggest motivator. However, this kind of praise only mimics the kind of social needs that we as humans need. It failed to deliver the sufficient rise in the brain’s hormones needed to create an actual sense of belonging or being loved. Whilst getting validation for my posts always gave me that lovely dopamine hit, it was always temporary. It
never lasted long enough, so I was back to posting more content, just to regain that feeling of “security”, if you will.
This leads me into my third point, and for me, quite possibly the one I struggled with the most and still do- “Social comparison.” Research has proven time and time again that the more time you spend on Instagram, Facebook, etc. and the more strangers you have as friends the more time is spent on social comparison- which in turn, is associated with higher levels of depression. This is no secret, and we’ve all heard this at one point or another. For me, it was never something as excessive as depression, but I could definitely feel my constant growing number of followers take its toll on my self-esteem. Dissatisfaction with my own achievements became evident. I didn’t show this around other people, especially around my friends for fear of it being seen as a sign of “weakness.”
On social media everyone lives their best, filtered lives. It seemed like everyone had this cool talent, and their lives just seemed more fun and glamorous all around.
· This girl could play the guitar, piano AND the violin.
· This girl was super athletic and into workouts- she got all of the attention from the guys
and girls alike.
· This girl trains horses and dogs and is well known for it.
· This girl is the smartest in her grade and it shows through the photos she posts of first
place ribbons she won for having the best project in class.
· This girl posts a lot of selfies, but everyone is okay with it because she’s ridiculously
pretty and she gets a lot of likes and comments.
· This girl can paint, draw and create anything on paper and do so effortlessly.
On and on and on and on and on, times one-thousand.
I remember always being super intimidated by girls that had the coolest talents, the coolest circle of friends and just seemed to be living the most extravagant lives. I had next to no talent of any kind, especially when compared to the kinds of talents other Hutterite girls were flaunting. How would I keep my followers entertained and encapsulated? This was the bulk of my thoughts. I had become obsessed with how I was going to entice and attract a broader audience and I was willing to do almost anything to do so. The problem was, I had so many sparkling personalities to compete with, and how could I compare to any of them? Everyone, it seemed, had a “thing” that they were good at. What was my thing?
This is where things got really fuzzy. Turns out I didn’t have any kind of outlandishly cool talent, so I started copying what everyone else was doing and conformed to what was seen as “in style” and popular at the time. In my lack of originality, I simply hopped along and joined the latest and greatest. At one point I tried my hand at playing the keyboard because I thought if those younger than me could play the piano, then surely, I could do this. Though I underestimated the fact that I was navigating through completely unfamiliar waters and had never played any kind of instrument in my life. And what other people were doing with a tutor, I had to do by myself. I nearly killed every single brain cell I have trying to learn just one song. It took forever and a day, but I did it, and I was proud. But my efforts died off completely after that one attempt because to me, it simply wasn’t worth it. I lacked any and all musical talent and that was it. So, I moved on to the next potential hobby.
I tried yoga for a little bit and actually even came to like it and stuck with it for a few weeks. But I didn’t like it enough to adopt it as a lifestyle choice, so that too died off after a short period of time. I tried arts and crafts. Other girls on social media made this seem so easy, but I couldn’t get my people to look anything remotely similar to what they actually looked like, my animals appeared to be morphed with different animals and I couldn’t create anything that looked stunning or appealing in any way. Drawing was not for me.
It seemed that everything I was doing other people did better- according to social media. At the end of the day, I just didn’t measure up to what other people were capable of doing. At the time, I didn’t realize that this was because I was just trying to live someone else’s life, and as a result I became very unsatisfied with my own. I had no special skill, or at least none that I had discovered yet; this frustrated me, but what’s worse it made me feel incredibly insecure. I covered this up simply by posting more selfies and photos. Whenever there was a social event or gathering I made sure to snap some photos and upload them. I got photos of me and my friends
and posted them. If I didn’t post photos of an event, it simply didn’t happen. Everyone needed to know that I too was living my best life.
Full disclosure, I don’t want to make things seem sadder than they actually were- Yes I was happy, but it is also true that some of what I was putting out into the social media realm did not always fully and honestly reflect what my life was truly like. For instance, at social gatherings one was always pressured into capturing the perfect photo. The perfect selfie. The perfect shot of your friends posing in front of a wall that looked cool so that you could keep it for a future birthday post or maybe just as an excuse to make a throwback post about “the good ole’ days.”
News flash, these are the good ole days. I’m eighteen, not forty- which makes my hashtag throwback Thursday posts seem a loud cry for back when my life was “so great” when it truly wasn’t all I made it out to be on social media. Yes, it was great, but it was also ridden with anxiety and the burden that one needed to have a lively Instagram page to be considered #coolandfamous in real life, and this was almost all we ever talked about when we got together at social events.
“Has anyone else taken notice of the number of selfies Faleesha posts a day?” “Do you guys follow that new Hutterite meme page that came out?!” “Don’t forget, we need to take a selfie for the ‘Gram later.” “What hashtag should I put on this?”
On and on and on and on. Times one thousand.
I feel like since joining social media I have worn so many different masks. I have jumped from one personality to the next, trying them on like an outfit, and if I didn’t like it I simply substituted it out for a new one. Until’ that one got old, wrinkled and out of style. For me that would be the best way to put it. It’s not even that I was unhappy with my own life, it was more than I thought I had to prove that my life was better than everyone else’s- and living was starting to feel like a competition. It was exhausting. I can wholeheartedly say that I’ve taken better away from my experiences than bad. There was a lot of confusion along the way, but in the midst of the chaos I truly grew as a person. I became smarter in managing the time I allow myself to
spend on social media platforms. I am now able to better restrict myself, and I did this by identifying the things that triggered me to go on my phone in the first place and what time of the day I was more vulnerable to do so.
Further, I have learned to differentiate between virtual reality and reality. I’ve realized that by doing things that interest and please me, equals a more authentic appearance online and even when I am around others. I no longer need to pretend to like something I have zero interest in, and I believe a lot of the time this was a huge problem for me. I have learned and discovered what interests me and what I am comfortable with. I have kept my circle of friends relatively small because I chose quality over quantity. Along with that, I am no longer interested in getting the most amount of likes, comments and followers.
I now take photos for the memories instead of the gram. Also photography, ironically, has become my number one hobby throughout the years. I turns out my “thing” was staring me in the face the entire time. Whilst I was out and about getting that perfect selfie and achieving the perfect angle that best captures that headstand, and that sunset, and that dog tail- I developed a tremendous love for photography.
I am currently still very much an avid social media user. It’s become less about achieving popularity and more about sharing my photos with a broader audience and expressing my personality. What it’s meant for in the first place. Using instagram right was just a matter of pinpointing how I wanted to utilize it. It took a lot of filtering, following-the-leader, and uncomfortable persuasion to get there, but I did.
First and foremost, the younger we are the more naive and susceptible we are, which means this is the time when we are more than likely going to fall into those social media traps. Creating fake personalities to get attention from others, forming friendships/relationships with strangers online, falling into “the infinity scroll” where we spend countless hours online browsing and comparing ourselves to others.
What I want those younger than me to know is that “YOU are the boss.” The app does not have a brain of its own, you are the brain, and how you decide to use it is completely up to you. You are in control. Ask yourself:
· What triggers me to check my phone? (notifications/ turn off, silent phone)
· How often do I typically check my phone, and what time during the day am I most likely
to do so?
· How much of the time do I feel in control of my smartphone?
Once you’ve identified all of these, make changes that work for you. Establish rules and limits for yourself and remain consistent. Stick to them! If you do not practice consistency, then it’s seemingly pointless. Also take breaks from social media every now and then. Even after a full day or two of staying offline the mind feels a lot more rejuvenated. I took more notice of what was going on in my everyday life and it forced me to spend time with friends and family.
Social media is actually a really wonderful thing. It’s a great way to stay connected with friends, to share our ideas, thoughts, photos, etc. But how will we know the difference between an authentic account and a “fake” one? For me I’ve found it best to do this by simply only following people I’ve met personally. That way I can say “Yes, I have met her, she is just as dramatic and silly as she is on her Instagram. A real hoot!” I can form an honest opinion about that person because I’ve spent time with/her face-to-face.
It’s a lot easier to judge someone based on their social media account if you’ve never met them. It is sometimes difficult to remember that behind every profile there is an actual human being. A bundle of confused flesh with feelings, insecurities, hopes and dreams, much like us. Remind yourself, “there is a person behind this profile. It is not just an online user.” I often still need to do this myself.
I focus on mental and physical betterment instead of comparing myself to the beautiful people who are at a different place in their journey to wellbeing than I am. I used to look at all of my friends and all of the strangers I was following as being 10,000 steps ahead of me and I was overwhelmed with trying to catch up. I’ve learned it’s not a race at all and you cannot compare
entirely different routes to happiness. Just focus on your own path, your own strengths and try to be a little better every day.
Whilst the clichés are painfully apparent here, what I mean to stress is, it’s possible to feel comfortable online, one just needs to know how. We cannot be afraid to acknowledge our insecurities. Social media is not black and white. It is neither good nor bad. It comes with an abundant set of both advantages and setbacks.
Future me will most likely continue to use social media for a while yet, because though it comes with its disadvantages and disappointments and addictions- at least I am now perfectly aware of them and in control of how I want to address them.
In the end, what happens is completely up to me. Be smart. Be kind to yourself, and to others. Always remember, you are the brain.
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