Online Influences and Oversharing

 Hello all, in today's post I will be talking about my personal experiences and opinions on a couple different social media platforms, the benefits and drawbacks of each platform and finally addressing social media's influences on mental/emotional health. First, the platform on the chopping block, Snapchat. Some benefits of Snapchat, like most social media platforms, is that it is a fun way to engage with friends and family. Snapchat allows you to send chats with photos. The fun thing about Snapchat are the filters that you can place on your face, other people's faces or just the background, pretty much any filter that you can think of is on Snapchat. Snapchat is not like instagram where when you post something you are not receiving validation via likes on your posts. Snapchat is also more limiting with how you follow and receive followers on the platform. Some drawbacks of Snapchat are that it is every time someone sends a snap it disappears immediately after that viewer sees the photo, keeping the audience more engaged but also it has become the new "texting" this platform can allow toxic things to be said or explicit pictures to be sent to the viewer with the comfort of knowing that what has ben sent or said will disappear. In my experience this makes senders more comfortable with sending negative content over snapchat. Other drawbacks about Snapchat can be viewed here. Next up, Instagram. I personally want to focus on the negatives of instagram but here is a great article that talks about benefits of Instagram in education. I grew up in a house where my parents did not let me get a phone till I turned 14 years old, this seems reasonable but by that time all of my friends have had a cell phone for at least a year. Another rule while growing up was that I was not allowed to get any type of social media until the end of senior year of high school. After getting Instagram I realized how much I was protected from the negative content on Instagram and from myself. I began noticing that I cared more about my appearance, constantly putting on makeup and dressing up when going out with friends because I knew we would be taking photos to post. I am not saying this is unhealthy, but for me, it got to the point where I struggled with body image and I was not taking care of myself mentally, emotionally, or physically. For me, this is a major drawback of Instagram. Instagram makes you feel instantly gratified if you get a new follower or by how many comments and likes that you have on your most recent post. For a while I was only posting content that would get me more followers, likes, and comments I was not posting anything that showed people about my personality or who I was. Because of these experiences I think that social media does have an obligation to post more about mental health showing people that what they see on social media is only a fraction of the actual person the profile belongs to. Social media platforms could start by doing this in encouraging mental health breaks, or starting a # movement. What I mean by that is establishing something that everyone can relate to but is a topic that many people do not feel comfortable posting about. Platforms could also approach celebrities or influencers and ask them to share something about their mental health that they feel would help other people out there.