Following on from my last post, as it was getting very long (longer than I had imagined) I decided to split that post as a setting the scene of my social media history and this post will get onto the problems of the modern age social media.
Having watched the Netflix documentary (Social_Animals), it made me realize that I am so happy and relieved that I am not growing up and in my teens now, in 2019.
The reliance on social media is crazy, and as someone on the periphery of social circles and normality, I have never understood this craze for likes from random people or the need for a picture perfect life to show others.
I mean, some people spend hours of time getting ready for a single image on their social media account which is followed by hundreds/thousands of random people who they have never met to just paw over and gawk at. Kids are getting into social media at younger ages, you see 10yr olds girls posing like models and middle aged men commenting on their pictures in a lewd manner which is beyond creepy. Is that sort of attention really what they want? Does that really make them feel better? One thing I am sure about, if a middle aged man made lewd comments over a 10yr old girl in public, face to face... there is no way the kid would be happy, they'd be scared and worried for their life. I can also say, there is no way in hell anyone would think it was acceptable either.
I've heard stories about people going onto their own photos as fake profiles to give negative comments and say abusive stuff to get more attention from friends. I've seen couples out in public glued to their phones seemingly oblivious to the world around them and the company they are out with. You get keyboard warriors and trolls who find it worth their time to berate random people for their content on youtube, their photos on their timeline or other things where if in person, in real life, it wouldn't even cross their mind to comment on. You get the idiots who seem to get a buzz out of causing grief to others online from behind the safety of their screen. The arseholes of the world have taken over a platform which was supposed to be used for a positive thing and have turned it into a nightmare which is causing countless suicides in young people, yet no-one feels accountable for what they say online.
When I say a platform for positive uses, I have experience of this as I met my ex through Myspace, my current spouse was a friend of theirs (i know a little awkward). Upon the break-up of the ex and I, Myspace provided the platform for communication for me, an awkward, shy and low on confidence person to be able to express myself in a way which took away such anxiety of the awkwardness of flirting and the pre-dating routines. Online messengers were a godsend for me. I overthink everything, struggle to get into conversations because I worry too much I'd say the wrong thing, get nervous about such things with people there, able to see me fail miserably at social contact. But, online messaging took all the issues away for me, i was able to be the funny, charming and awkwardly weird but in a good way person I am which would normally only be reserved to the few close friends who actually know me.
These messaging systems nowadays though, have a twisted nature about them. Constant harassment for nude pictures plague the majority of people on social media. They have become a platform for easy bullying where you don't even need to be with them to affect your target and with only a few taps at the keyboard. What was used as a great way for friends to catch up after school, or friends from other cities to keep in touch has become a monster fueled by trolls and cowards hiding behind their screens.
I am now at the age where a family, kids, are on the mind. We have a house, so next up is kids. But along with the usual fears of screwing them up, being a failure of a parent etc. etc. is this horrible uncontrollable thing which needs to be managed. How the hell would one protect their offspring from the evil side of social media without ruining the kid's life for being disconnected in such an interactive world we now live in.
Social media wasn't really about until my teens. My parents had none of these worries. The only pressure they had from me was to try and keep up with the ever developing phone industry. When social media got going, my parents had no idea about what it was, it's potential or it's dangers and luckily for them, it seems I was a responsible enough person to understand it myself. But when children in this age are being exposed to social media at younger and younger ages, in all honesty, it scares me shitless as I have no idea of how to manage such a problem without holding my child back and distancing them from their friends.
If there are parents out there who can assist in this feel free to comment as it is a genuine worry for me. How do you control the monster that social media has become and protect your children while not affecting their potential popularity?
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