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These photos scream "stereotypical college freshman" out partying day in and day out. I can see why all of my relatives are surprised when I tell them about the Honors Program and my straight As. The profile that they see provides little context. They don't see the countless hours I spend in the library every week. They don't see me volunteering. They don't see me washing dishes in the CSL to maintain independence from my parents. Because I don't post about it, they don't know it exists.
One of the articles I read explained the paradox of excluding oneself from social media, but never being able to shake an online presence. The idea was that if you do not create your own e-dentitiy, everyone else will. I am afraid that's what I have let happen with my dumping-ground-for-tagged-posts Facebook profile.
Anyway, Google also pulled up links to my Twitter feed, Instagram page, Pinterest account, a list of Illinois State Scholars published by my high school, and my grandma's online obituary from last September. I am more active on these sites, so I think they are more accurate, but I'm still not convinced they do a good job depicting my personality.
Anyway, Google also pulled up links to my Twitter feed, Instagram page, Pinterest account, a list of Illinois State Scholars published by my high school, and my grandma's online obituary from last September. I am more active on these sites, so I think they are more accurate, but I'm still not convinced they do a good job depicting my personality.
No matter how involved you are with social media, it simply cannot accurately reflect the complexity of human personality. Adding depth to it is far from the answer according to Super Sad True Love Story. I understand that social media does very little to benefit me, and presents an inaccurate description of me, but for some reason I am not quite ready to go offline.
Some food for thought:
Some food for thought:
I had never thought about how if you do not create an E-identity, someone will for you. It is strange to think about how you can do everything right, but it still isn't enough to make people see who you truly are.
ReplyDeleteIf social media doesn't benefit you, why did you start doing it in the first place? That's mostly a question for myself but it makes me think, when creating accounts back in middle school and high school, I must have been under the impression I would benefit in some way. Those reasons for maintaing certain social medias (Facebook and Instagram) have changed since initial creation. Maybe yours have too.
ReplyDeleteI also started accounts a long time ago and I did enjoy them for a long time. Recently, there is just less and less that gets posted that I am interested in; however, I am still trying to weigh the costs of simply deleting it all and missing the element of connection with friends and family who all of the sudden live all across the country, which I'm sure you can relate to.
DeleteIt's interesting that you attempted to limit your use of social media, but mentioned that if you don't go online the only version of your e-dentity will be through tagged photos and friends. I don' t think you should necessarily give up social media completely(so I'm glad you aren't) because like anything it can be good in moderation.
ReplyDeleteIts interesting to think about how difficult it would be for a person to make their online identity match their real one. Even biographies that have almost a thousand pages can't accurately portray a person in their entirety. I don't know if social media is really meant for people to express themselves completely, especially when other people are such a large part in the creation of an e-identity.
ReplyDelete