The Discussing Teenager: Social Media

Ooh, that title rhymes! (I’m easily pleased). I thought I would take a leaf out of The Writing Hufflepuff’s book, and give a discussion post a go.

Over the last month or so, several things have begun to continuously irritate me about social media. First, lets take Facebook. FB promises to help you stay connected. You build up networks of ‘friends’ and get to follow what your favourite celebrities are up to (or what they want to tell you they’re up to) and can see what your friends like. You can choose to like pages which will give you pictures and posts related to what you like – books, TV, films, music, anything. But I feel that what was origially about staying connected with friends has become a way to show your ‘popularity’. People can have hundreds, even thousands of friends – but how many are they actually friends with? Photos can have hundreds of likes – but is that dependent on your social standing and the number of friends you have, as well as what kind of photo it is? In my experience, more friends = more likes, and a posed duck face selfie gets more likes than the ‘au naturel’ look.

from realitytvgifs.tumblr.com, via giphy.com

Facebook was also originally based around sharing statuses, letting your friends know what you’re up to. However,  I reckon my newsfeed can be broken down like this: 10% statuses from friends, 15% adverts, 50% posts from pages I like and 25% details of what my friends have liked. I don’t know how accurate that is, but I think it gets the general gist across. Before I joined Facebook, I dreamt of the witty statuses I would posts, prompting laughs across the computer screens of my friends. Nope. Most statuses turn out to be either pointless and annoying, ‘like for looks/a line’ etc. or the occasional interesting photo/genuine thought. I don’t know if this is generally a school-based thing or just me, but I rarely post, sometimes because I feel like people aren’t going to like it, meaning I end up looking like a loser talking to the World Wide Web. (I mean, I do that here, but at least I know a few people will read it…hopefully!)

source: failblog.cheezburger.com via giphy.com

I know that many people depict my generation, having grown up with the internet, as entirely web-obsessed. We’re supposedly tweeting all day long, permanently on Facebook, Instagramming everything we eat and obsessively pinning (despite the fact the majority of us can’t sew) – I know some people are like that, but I don’t think all of us are. What are your thoughts about the stereotype? How often do you use social media? How do you think of teenagers?

I would love to hear your opinions in the comments (READ: PLEASE HELP ME DISCUSS MY DISCUSSION POST! I’LL GIVE YOU VIRTUAL HUGS! Haha) (no pressure), so feel free to expound your views and opinions below!

Thanks 🙂