I Did Some Reflecting

Chapter 3: My Affairs With Social Media Thus Far

Today, social media is a huge platform consisting of many apps and billions of daily users around the world. Apps such as Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Tic-Tok, Twitter and YouTube are among the most popular ones commonly used by Guyanese and people around the world. These apps are versatile and are used for many different purposes. From my point of view, the objectives of social media include and are not limited to: communication between friends and family, entertainment, an outlet for businesses to promote their product which allows for customer interactions and feedback, a place for people of all occupations, races and positions to voice their own opinions which opens up a discussion about a space for creativity, positivity and negativity. This however, all depends on how a person uses their social media platform to portray themselves and the content they choose to create, engage in and share. It is evident, that technology is advancing and changing everyday which affects the scope of how social media and it's relating apps operates. Everyday there is a new feature update added to an app and to be honest, it is overwhelming sometimes, or there is a major aesthetic change overhaul to an app, or even the users and the content they publish changes over time.

As far as I could remember though, during my high school years, Facebook was seen as a big thing back then and it still is, through the eyes of many young people in Guyana. Having a Facebook profile in high school, personally, my classmates made it felt like there was some level of popularity and superiority attached to it. My family in general, regarded Facebook as a dangerous place where people are influenced to engage in activities seen as immoral, unethical and illegal. Not to be stereotypical or anything, but my Indian family instilled a fear in that creating a Facebook profile would be the end of the world. In the year of 2013, I was at an internet cafe and my friend peer pressured me into creating a Facebook profile in which I did. The catch though, was that it was a fake profile bearing a fake name and profile picture. My fake name? "Cody Martin" (a name taken from 'The Suite Life of Zack and Cody'). I know, What a name! I am laughing as i type this chapter. After my profile was created, I had mixed feelings comprising of excitement and nervousness. Immediately, through the help of my friend, I began to familiarize myself with the features and functions of Facebook and began sending out friend request to my classmates and making sure I avoided my family at any and all cost. At that time, I did not own a smartphone, so periodically when I visited the internet cafe, I would login and check for updates and view my Facebook feed to interact with my friend's posts. I can't specifically remember how my parents found out about my Facebook profile but I think my sister told my father and to be honest, he did not get angry or overreact. Based on his reaction and behavior, I felt comfortable changing my fake name to my real name and finally I could put up a picture of myself. Right there and then, the addiction and toxicity of social media began to slowly infiltrate my young and innocent mind unknowingly.

In form 4 during my high school phase, I was fortunate enough to own my first smartphone. This allowed me direct access to apps such as Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Snapchat or any other app I so desire, as I could easily download it via the Google Play Store. With the addition of Wi-Fi, I basically had an up-to-date and everyday access to social media. The addiction begins. There is this psychological temptation that social media plays around in my mind. Whenever I hear that notification sound, I have that sudden urge to check what that notification is and as time passes by a discomfort is felt and all the attention is fixated upon that notification until it is viewed or if it involves any further action. Sometimes, just not to engage in such an activity, I have to put my phone on the silent mode to avoid that pinging sound. Additionally, many hours are spent browsing through different apps, suddenly messaging people as soon as possible becomes a priority while your real life tasks have to wait, reality is soon becoming boring while there is much more excitement attached to social media. Basically at such a young age, the platform was grooming my personality and lifestyle behavior. Imagine being told that eight (8) hours of sleep is necessary for a human being to function properly during a day but as a young person or whatever age you are, decides to lay in bed, as the hours passes by, engaging in the addiction of social media and the hours dedicated to sleeping decreases. At this point, those actions are becoming a permanent habit. Take for example, Snapchat, there exist this feature called Streaks, where mutually my friend and I have to send a picture (called snaps in this scenario) direct from our Snapchat camera to each other consecutively, yes everyday! And the reward for that? You get a point showed up as a number next to your friend's name and the same number would show up next to my name on my friend's phone, as you send snaps everyday the number increases and the goal is to see how high you can get that number to be and if you miss a day the number disappears (or as they say, the streak has ended) and you have to start all over again. Essentially, this is Snapchat way of getting its users to be active and addicted to the app. And boy, did I get dedicated about streaks! A habit was created that every morning I woke up, the first thing I needed to do was to send a snap to all my Snapchat friends (I didn't even know half of the people I did streaks with because I added random people just to do it). The same routine was carried out in the night before I went to bed. Whenever a streak with a person ended, there was always this feeling of disappointment and it was either me or the person not giving it our all. This was toxic. I carried out this activity for a few years until I came to the realization one day, that streaks didn't make any sense. In essence, I wasted everyday of my life committed to something which would not benefit me in the long term but was used as a tool to promote addiction and time wasting.

Social media can be a negative environment that promotes cyber bullying, toxic behaviors, drama and a place that is detrimental to your mental health based on the content and people you are exposed to. Like society, this platform engages me in comparisons and contrasts practices. There have been numerous occasions where I put myself in a position to question my self worth and lifestyle based on the content published by other people. Suddenly, because I don't possess certain materialistic things in life I begin to examine my self worth, there is this feeling of loneliness and an obligation for emotional support through love and relationships seen needed from strangers and my insecurities skyrocketed as I compare my physical appearance to other people's perfect face, body and their way of life. Even silly things like, not getting a certain amount of likes, views or followers causes some amount of unnecessary emotional distress. Take for example Instagram, in 2019, I had a passion and created an Instagram account dedicated to photo edits with a unique background. Eventually, through aggressive social media marketing (sending follower requests to random people etc.) my profile began to grow both through followers and likes. My passion soon became an obsession for likes, validation and affirmation. I felt pressured to pump out content just to keep the interactions and insights high and whenever a post received a few likes, I would spiral into an emotional agony and thoughts of failure or hatred spew in my mind, that experience was mentally draining. I was slowly beginning to realize the destructive side of social media and it was pushing me into a direction I didn't intended to go. Eventually, I took some precautionary measures I thought was necessary to curb my obsession and addiction to social media: I deactivated my Instagram profile and deleted my Snapchat account, I deleted all my content off of Facebook (my profile was basically a blank page), and I took a WhatsApp break. I used that time frame to do some deep thinking, understanding and reading to approach a level of maturity, where those negative phenomenons would not affect me in such a high degree. Listen, I know everyone is different and those negative factors I mentioned above may not affect them. But personally, it took years, experience, exposure and a level of maturity to come to a realization that social media can be used as a tool for good or bad and I can control what I want to engage and what affects me. As I grow older, I am beginning to understand the dynamics of how social media and it's users operate. On this platform, many people portray themselves differently compare to their actual real life. I can attest to that fact because I was once influenced to depict a fake personality to fit in with a trend or to make friends with a popular user. As a young person on social media, you have to be very vigilant and beware of persons that are going to come into your inbox and try to force a friendship (with their own goal in mind) and would then want to manipulate, engage in gas-lighting and penetrate your vulnerability to gain access to your personal details, life story and insecurities and then they would use that same information to blackmail, bully or start unnecessary drama with you.

With all of that said, social media is also a platform that promotes friendship and communication between families, a space for creativity and passion, an outlet for new information and interesting facts and an environment for positivity that enhances your mental health. Over the years, I have become friends with a small group of people who live in far areas. Yet, social media is that network that connects us and makes that bond close. Imagine bonding with someone because we mutually adore Taylor swift and eventually I get to meet that friend in real life or even having a friendship where mutual emotional support is given online and occasionally we meet in the park or somewhere, so therapeutic. I have been exposed and introduced to some amazing people online with talent and creativity done through art, photography, makeup, dancing, baking, singing, entrepreneurship, their ability to express themselves and their awareness for issues such mental health, animal care, domestic abuse, racism and inequality. This platform also keeps me up-to-date with local, regional and world news. Everyday you learn something new, interesting and fun and not forgetting the entertainment perspective which can have you giggling your heart out or crying your eyes out.

It's 2021, I am active on social media and I have rebranded my content to reflect my passion for amateur photography and has engaged in expressing myself through writing via an app called Wattpad. As I mentioned in the beginning, social media is advancing everyday and therefore this is not the end. As I age, more events will occur, new friendships will be established, more lessons will be learnt and there will be additional exposure and experience. To date, I have lost many online friendships and I have come to embrace that not everyone is destined to be friends, if it flows it flows. I am also fully aware that in the past I have been apart of the social media problem and even unknowingly today, I may still be contributing to and affected by the toxicity. However presently, I am more educated and I am using social media as a tool for positivity and as an avenue for my passion and to give genuine support towards other people's journey, career and hobbies. I am not going force or let anyone, any content or let likes and views define my experience on social media. It is, what it is!