Because of Social Media...

When I was 15, all I wanted was ‘a Facebook’ (account).?

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Just 5 years prior, when the social media network site had been established, my peers in elementary school and junior high were experimenting with sites like MySpace, ranking their friends (yes, that was really something people did) and choosing the ‘perfect song’ to express themselves on their profile.??

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For some odd reason, my parents wouldn’t allow me to create such a profile until I turned 16. Of course at the time, I thought this was an outrageous abuse of parental power as I listened to choruses of “friend me on Facebook” at school making me feel the worst possible feeling one could experience as a child between the ages of 6 and 18 -?exclusion. When I finally did turn 16 and immediately visited?www.facebook.com, I had absolutely no idea what kind of ‘fun’ was just beginning.?

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While it only took a short experience of being cyber bullied for me to understand how seriously social media can impact people, it would take years to truly grasp how invasive the platform would become. Between tagging friends in photos and listing family members in your bio, the platform was quickly collecting all kinds of data on its users, feeding them ads for products or services they’d likely be interested in. Now just years later, Facebook (and the platforms that have joined its ranks) finds itself in the center of the fight for Freedom of Speech. Not-so-suddenly, words are being monitored, posts are being flagged, accounts are being reported and with the few deserving exceptions, users find themselves wondering, “is all of this really worth it?”

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I work in marketing and as a result, social media is a daily part of my job. Strategy and implementation of Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn campaigns to increase revenue and brand awareness make up a significant portion of my job description despite it extending far beyond advertising on these networks. Back when I was applying to colleges, the big trending piece of advice was ‘don’t have anything on your social media pages you wouldn’t want these schools to see’. But beyond the golden years of 18-22, isn’t this theme always, in a sense, present? We all now seem to live in two different worlds-the real one, and the online world where you can nip/tuck and edit your ‘being’ all for a small monthly fee. Here are just SOME of the issues that have become far worse because of social media usage:

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-Mental Health

-Cyber Bullying

-Body Image/eating disorders

-Inappropriate content exposure (children)

-Depression

-Anxiety

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?Future political candidates will likely have to answer for things they “liked” or posted when they were kids, because no matter how final you may think the ‘delete’ button is…somewhere on a search engine far, far away, lies the post that could prevent you from getting the job, winning the election or getting donations for a deserving charity.?

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?14 years and 5 social media-adjacent jobs later, I have one thing to say to my Facebook-obsessed, teenaged self, “don’t do it.”?