First off all; these are just my thoughts. Stuff i say may be inaccurate, or you may experience it differently than me. If you want to write a response telling me that something i said because i experienced it in a particular kind of way; piss off. If you want to respond with some helpful criticism, you are more than welcome! The following (huge) text is just me rambling on and trying to get a vague point across. I did my best but it is late and i am kind of speel deprived. But hopefully, you will have an idea of what i meant, after finishing the text.
So lately i have been realizing the kind of pointlessness of Social Media. Not to say that everything is bad about Social Media. A lot is great about it! It helps revolutionist the world! Think about getting different ideas and cultures in contact and organizing people to stand against corruption and other bad stuff. But social media has a lot of down sides. Well in my opinion. Yes! It does depend on how you use Social Media on what kind of effect it has on your life! It really does! But when i am talking about using for example Facebook, i am talking about using Facebook a lot. Like most of my age group. Facebook isn't just a tool, a website, to look at your friend's vacation pictures. For most people i know, Facebook is just a part of the normal every day. Facebook is part of having a smartphone.
At the age of maybe 10, 11 ish, all the hype at my school was Hyves. Hyves was kind of the Dutch Facebook. With the majority of Hyves users because young Dutch kids, it was not a very nice place.
On Hyves you would have a page. A kind of page like Facebook. Friends and family could post stuff on your page, your wall, and people could see it. Your posts would be called 'Krabbels', if i remember correctly. These Krabbels where mostly used to say Happy Birthday to someone or to post a fun picture. But in my 'circle', the younger kids, it was used to post other stuff. Stuff like a picture of the person and write (in Dutch) "OMG i miss you sooo muuch my bby". All in that kind of trend. Just to let people know: "Hey i'm with him/her, i am better than you all".
Don't get me started on profile pictures. Oh my... The profile pictures..
So like with Facebook, you had profile pictures. In my circle, the pictures where the most annoying, stupid and idiotic pictures you could imagine. Now this was not the case for everyone. Some had just normal pictures but the majority just followed a (stupid) trend. A couple of trends you can still see today with the younger Social Media users. Like posing in front of you bathroom mirror, looking like you are constipated and having the camera flash just right so you almost couldn't see your face. Maybe this was some anti-NSA movement to make face-detection harder, but i doubt it. (No... That last sentence wasn't serious).
Girls would take some black/white -dramatic picture and boys would have a 'cool'/'shirtless' picture. Even the holy saint that is me, myself and I bought in to the trend(s). But hey we where all just dumb kids. Right?
Wrong. Even adults would stoop to such a low level. But that is a whole other story.
I am just trying to paint a picture of what Hyves was like. It was a 'status' place. If you didn't have AT LEAST 300 friends, you weren't cool. If you didn't have girls put "Mooiboy" or some kiss/heart smiley under your Profile Picture, you weren't pretty. You did 'not belong'.
Now of course, before social media you had the 'Cool Kids Club'. But that ended when you where at home. At home you would just hang out with your friends or do something else.
With Hyves you would take your 'school status' to your home. You would be at home, browsing Hyves because you didn't have anything else to do and add people that you didn't even know.
Just to get a higher friends -number.
Kids would buy in to the pressure. In to being part of the group. Not just the Cool Kids Club, no. In to whatever group you could imagine. For me it was the 'Edgy Emo Club'. I know....
And I, just because some stupid 'emo' account on Hyves posted that long black hear was cute, and had gotten a couple hundred like in doing so, would point my hear black and let it grow out.
Almost everything you did was to send a message. A message that in essence said: 'I'll bend backwards and turn inside out, just to belong to your meaningless imaginative group'.
After some time, for whatever reason, people where switching to Facebook.
But I want to talk about Twitter first for a moment. Twitter was also a hype in my circle, my community.
Twitter was a whole different beast. A whole new thing! "Everything people read on Twitter where just your little messages? Just your stuff? No games they could play on the site? No profiles they could post Krabbels on? All people would care about when using Twitter was just my opinion? My opinion matters? Sounds GREAT! -me, a couple years back.
On Twitter you could post about your day, about your lunch, about your anything. But people used it to post drama, to post really personal and uninteresting stuff. And so, if some big account or your friend would do it, so would you. (well.. Not you per-se, but i sure did and so did other people around me). People would be judged on their followers -number, on their total amount of Tweets, on their Profile Picture. But not on the content they Tweeted, mind you.
People would start Twitter 'fights'. When i think about it, wow this is fucking pathetic. But hey, when i was a kid this was a big deal. Okay?
It was really just some bullshit like "Oh why didn't you tag me in that mean tweet you send"? (As you could see in the example, account A is accusing account B of writing something mean about them, without 'tagging' them. Tagging is a way to send a tweet to someone. (I think it is called tagging at least.. Anyway.. Account A, the one accusing account B, is being a hypocrite because they are not 'tagging' account B. This. This is the fucking drama that went on on Twitter). So you had two people tweeting @ (see what i did there?) each other and this would be posted to a person's Time Line (if he/she would follow both infoveld accounts).
I, in hindsight, think that this is some Alpha type bullshit. Like a Gorilla slamming on it's chest to show the other monkeys "Look at me! I am the Alpha!".
Well.. That may be inaccurate, but you get the point.
And then people got bored of Twitter and started using Facebook more. Well Facebook is just the same deal as Hyves. People posting dumb shit, so people will notice, so people will 'like', so people will give compliments. People will post their best moments, as if it was their every day life. People would post drama, as if it mattered. People would post pictures of them with someone, to make people aware that they have a significant other.
Facebook is like a fucking drug. You have to scroll deeper and deeper to get the good and or cool content. You have to use it more and more! Use it for remembering birthdays! Use it for getting the news (you really should not get your news from Facebook...). Use it to interact with friends! Use it to get video content! Use it for product recommendations!
You can't not use it. You will miss out.
After 1100 words of boring you, i'll get to the stuff that (i think) that matters.
Using social media as a kid if (in my opinion) not a good thing. Things that are tiny, interpersonal things, become huge!
You have no idea what kind of effect you have on other people by just pushing a button or typing 10 words. As a little kid you have no idea. As a 17 year old, I sometimes still underestimate that fact.
When a was an intern at an elementary school, there was a problem with students having 'fights' online. It was really online bullying. You could say "Oh just plug the dahm modem out!". Well it isn't that easy. Especially for a kid. They have phones now. Devices that connect them to 3,424,971,236 (internetlivestats.com) internet users. The phone seems to be part of them. If they don't have Facebook they get a shocked reaction. If they (for example) don't want PewDiePie, they would be made fun off and be told they have no sense of comedy. Etc. Etc.
Everybody is connected. Everybody has a voice. Everybody wants to fit in.
Especially when you are young.
Now, after using having used Social Media for a while, i realize how fucking stupid this BS is.
On Hyves, i added strange people so other people at school would think i'm cool for having a lot of friends, posted really embarrassing Profile Pictures so i would fit in, and post Krabbels on the pages of my 'girlfriends' so people would know "HEY I HAVE A GIRLFRIEND"!
On Twitter, i shouted in to an endless void of voices and opinions. Just to get noticed. Just to get liked. Just so people would listen to my opinion. (kind of what i am doing right now).
On Facebook, i post photos so people will know i had a good time. I will share stuff so other people could watch the same MotoGP overtake that i found amazing but other people don't care about. But they see that i care about it. I will post something. Just to get approval.
I just typed out +-1500 words and it is 23:30 right now. Sorry if the above rambeling is fucking horrible. I just wanted to write my mind on 'paper' and share it. Post it in to the infinite void of opinions and voices.