Facebook Story

The first time that I used the Internet, for social media purposes, was when I was 13 and made my Myspace page. It was New Year's Eve and my friend Noelle and I were getting ready to go downtown with my family. We somehow convinced my mom that we would be sharing the profile so she agreed to let me create an account. I remember spending countless hours perfecting my profile. What theme should I have? What songs should be on my playlist? Perhaps most importantly, who should be in my top 8? I even remember taking my first profile picture on our families digital camera, sitting against the wall in my kitchen holding up a 3 fingered peace sign. My mom had to help me upload it.

However, as I got older trends changed and now Myspace is merely a graveyard of old profiles and adolescent angst. From Myspace, I upgraded to Facebook. I joined Facebook during the height of the “Facebook Fame” era. A time in which it was cool and common to have someone come up to you and ask, “Are you Chelsea from Facebook?” This happened to me once outside of a concert and I remember feeling so cool. However, with Facebook also came a lot of drama. It’s easy to say things over a computer that you wouldn’t say to someones faces. Like many people, I have been in my fair share of Facebook fights. Now that I look back on it I find it incredibly embarrassing. Once something is on the internet, it’s always on the internet. Anyone can go back and see the stupid things that I used to say to, or about, people. At the time though, these thoughts weren’t running through my head. I can almost guarantee that many of the things I said to people over the internet, I wouldn’t say in real life. Most of the time social media just exacerbated the situation because then the Facebook drama would get carried over into your everyday life and cause more issues.
Nowadays I feel like social media is going through a huge overhaul, in a positive fashion. With the introduction of platforms such as Twitter, where tweets go viral everyday, people are becoming more aware of what they put on the internet. Everyday a different video goes viral of someone doing something or saying something offensive. Now more than ever people are being held accountable for their actions because of the power of social media. “I’m putting this on Facebook” is now the equivalent to the threat of calling the news to out shady or offensive businesses. Overall, I feel as though the direction social media is headed in is a good one. If used properly it can lead to the exchange of thoughts and perspectives, while also teaching people many life lessons and responsibility. While everyone is entitled to their freedom of speech, not everything is meant for the internet. This doesn’t just apply to bigots, but also the chronic over-sharers of Facebook.

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