Social Media Thoughts

If you follow me on social media you would see that I post pictures of my little ones. I post random moments... snapshots of our everyday. I do this for a few reasons. One being that the majority of our family lives out of town. Social media gives us a way to connect with them. It gives us a way to share what is going on with them and see glances of the boys since they aren't able to see them often. A second reason is simply to keep a record of memories. I have always been obsessed with pictures and record keeping. I have scrapbooked since I was younger. I was that girl with the binder in high school with the clear view front where you could slide pictures, notes, etc into to put on display. I love looking back through the years of memories. Social media is a digital memory keeper. Facebook even changed my brothers page to an "in memory" page where people can still post thoughts to him. Social media can be awesome.

People use social media for other reasons. To grow their businesses. To share knowledge. To learn.. to teach..to inspire.. you name it. Friendships form over social media. Relationships form over social media. Lots of awesome things can happen. Social media can be awesome.



But then there are the downsides. The fact that it is used for negativity. The fact that it gives people some sort of confidence to be ugly to others. People feel like they can judge others and take it upon themselves to comment and be rude and ugly. A local teen here just committed suicide because he was repeatedly bullied over Instagram. I can't even begin to fathom what his family is going through.. his mom... it adds to my already existent fears about my boys getting older and being shoved into the real world.

Then there are the people that overshare and post every little detail of there Or the people that push their ideas on others. Like they are super passionate about something (which is great to be passionate about things) but then they absolutely need others to agree and side with them. The others that push their political thoughts on people. Of course there are the standard bad decisions of people posting provocative pictures.. talks of doing things that while they may not be illegal they are probably frowned upon.

I don't know exactly where I am going with this. Around me I hear of people making resolutions to stay off of social media or not get on as much. People complain about the things people post and some even get hurt or depressed about what others post for various reasons.  It doesn't have to be that way. PSA for the day... use social media responsibly. It can be awesome.