Social Media: Where the Addiction Started

It all started July 22nd, 2009 when I first created a profile with the help of my older

cousin and under the strict supervision of my mother. Unlike most, I never had a MySpace

account like the majority of my friends since my parents were incredibly strict about the whole

“online profiles” and having my own information out there for the whole world to view, so

creating a Facebook account was a large step for me. At the time I didn’t have a cell phone

either so I convinced my parents, with the help of my older cousin, to let me make one in place

of not having a cell phone so I can easily communicate with my friends. With the creation of my

account I was told I had three rules to follow. First, I had to give both my parents my password

to the account so they can periodically check in on what I was doing. Second, don’t add or

accept and friends that I didn’t known because there is a lot of “weirdos” and “creepers” out

there. And third, don’t ever post about going on vacation or being out of town as it will notify

people that no one is home and someone might rob our home while we are gone. And within

that moment I was suddenly connected with the millions of others who were using Facebook.

While in middle school if you had a Facebook you were almost automatically considered

“cooler” than most. I now was connected with everyone else and could be in contact with

almost anyone at any time of the day. We would compete with one another on who has the

most “friends” or who could get the most “likes” on their “like for a tbh” post. Then came

Farmville, an online game tied into Facebook where you tended livestock and harvested crops

to gain experience points and unlock other animals and crops. After coming home from a long

day of school a couple of my friends and I would spend countless hours wasted away tending

our fields and animals just to gain experience points to level up faster than the other guy. This

massively multiplayer online (MMO) game soon became a giant competitive race between my

8th grade class as we all would be online from the time we got home from school till the time

our parents kicked us off. The act of poking someone on Facebook also became a major

competitive game between friends on the social media website. What was once a minor act of

acknowledging someone soon grew into what is now known as poke wars. Although the

majority of poke wars would only be between a few individuals, some people took it to the

extreme and would start poke wars with everyone within their Facebook. Even to this day I’m

still in a competitive poke war that has been going on for almost four years strong. But like all

great things, Facebook became to reach its end as my parents finally decided to make an

account themselves which made me want to use it less as well as the fact that I finally received

my first cell phone and had the power to contact anyone at any time without the use of a

computer.

As I graduated from middle school and moved onto bigger and better things in high

school a new social media trend was paving new roads. Twitter soon took over the void that

Facebook had left and it seemed like the perfect fit. Twitter made speaking my mind a lot

easier too as on twitter I could virtually say whatever I wanted to without having to worry

about my parents knowing. Twitter had many perks to it as well such as easy access to finding

out where the best parties were in the area as well as keeping up with current events by

following popular new accounts. With virtually unlimited access to thousands of people via

twitter, the idea of spreading the word about parties one retweet at a time became a popular

thing. People that I followed would retweet or repost addresses of house parties which would

spread like a forest fire throughout the twitter community. The most infamous, Twitter-

inspired party was last winter break when a wrestling teammate decided to have a couple

people over at his place while his parents were gone. Like everyone else before him all he did

was simply post his address and minor details about this little get together. Being me, I decided

to show up fashionably late only to arrive to this house swarmed with well over three-hundred

people from every major highschool within a fifty mile radius. As Twitter began to become a

major social media application, more and more businesses as well as news outlets became

active users as another way to reach out and inform people of current events. I’ve always been

someone who kept up with the world news and Twitter made it so much easier to do that. By

following news sites such as @nytimes or @NBCNews I was always able to see real time posts

about all the current events happening. All this information of current events were within three

screen swipes on my phone and I always had the access I needed to see what was happening

around the world. As of today I still use twitter as the more popular of the social media outlets.

Then after being stuck in the Stone Age all my life my parents decided to upgrade and

get the family smart phones. This would be the monumental leap in my ability to use multiple

social media networks at once and also opened up access to the hottest social media app at the

time known as Instagram. Instagram was the latest and greatest application in your phone that

let you post just pictures (and later videos) to an account that only your followers were allowed

to view. At first I wasn’t that big on Instagram just because it seemed too confusing to me and I

also wasn’t the most photogenic person so my appearances in pictures were limited. But as I

slowly came out of my awkward stage halfway through high school I began using the app mire

often. I wanted to use Instagram to its full potential and upload as many pictures so I could look

back one day and reminisce on those memories. As I grew more accustomed to the app I

started using it more often to see what my friends were doing as well as being able to share

pictures of going deep sea fishing and all the gag grouper that we caught the weekend before

or my tour to Westpoint Military Academy. I felt more connected to Instagram for the longest

time as I really enjoyed the idea of being able to share and view pictures to see little snapshots

of other people’s lives. Eventually even Instagram would slowly fade as it would be taken over

by another social media app that had a similar but different concept.

Then came my personal favorite social media app, Snapchat, which would make its

grand debut in my high school around the end of 2013. Snapchat was an app that gave the user

the ability to take pictures using your phone known as a “snap” and send them to friends for

only a limited amount of time before they would disappear forever. Snapchat was especially

popular during school hours as my friends and I would snap each other to pass the time of each

class while simultaneously staying connected throughout school. It soon got to the point where

I would be getting essentially live stream videos of a friend in his marine science class and

known everything the teacher was teaching in that particular class all from the endless snaps

that I kept receiving. The idea that you could only view a picture for so long before it was gone

forever really caught my attention as I soon started using the app more and more. I could now

get away with taking those awkward and embarrassing facial expressions of myself or one

another and draw on them with the Snapchat drawing feature which only broadened our ability

to get creative with our pictures. Ultimately Snapchat did one positive thing for me and that is it

helped me hone in on my photography skills. I was never much of a photographer but after

thousands of snaps later I can finally say with confidence that I take the best selfie the world

has ever seen. When I left for college, Snapchat continued to be the best way to get in touch

with friends as it was still being used by everyone to this day. It gave everyone who used it a

way to peek into the lives of others and get somewhat of a firsthand experience of what was

going on in other people’s lives.

As of today I regularly use all four social media networks which comprise the majority of

my free time when I’m not sleeping, at school, or pledging. From the very beginning with

Facebook to the latest and greatest of Snapchat, social media is a growing industry for anyone

who has way too much time on their hands but at the same time gives an individual their own

entitlement as well as always being able to stay in touch with friends. Even if I were on the

other side of the world away from the majority of my friends and family I would still feel like I

have full contact with them whenever I want because of how easy access all these social media

networks are. New social media networks are rolling out every couple months with the next

hottest trend just around the corner to swoop in and take its root in millions or even billions of

people’s lives.

Paper 1 Reflection

In the digital history narrative in paper 1 I wanted to change the paper from

what came off as a “history paper” of social media to a more narrated story that flowed. I

accomplished this by two ways, first using all the feedback that I was given to clean up my

messy paragraphs and second was adding more “in the moment” examples from my own

experience which would be beneficial for the story as a whole. First, I concentrated a lot of my

revising on all the feedback and advice that was given to me after being graded. A lot of the

comments asked for less of a report style and more of a story line which would ultimately help

the narrative flow from the beginning to end. I had to cut a lot of repetitive BS out and instead

use more examples of my own personal experiences that I had with each social media site to

make the narrative more interesting. This was a little difficult at first since I had to really ponder

my thoughts of what went on with each social media outlet back in those days but became

much easier as I reminisced on the past.