Living Life Online
Today the line between online and offline has been blurred. In fact, the distinction might seem odd to someone who was born after the arrival of social media. But what opportunities and challenges does social media offer?
Celebrating You and Me
Hold your phone at a high angle, make your eyes look bigger and your cheekbones more defined. Position your thumb over the button, turn a bit to the side, and click. It's easy to take a selfie.
Celebrities do it, so why shouldn't you? A large number of teenagers have posted a selfie online, too. In mid-2018, Instagram reached 360 million pictures with the hashtag #selfie.
Selfies allow you to control your own image online – typically looking your very best. It is a quick way to get positive comments from your friends. Likes can boost your self-confidence.
Keywords
- attention (n.)
- self-confidence (n.)
- addiction (n.)
- acceptance (n.)
- self-esteem (n.)
- trolling (n.)
An Addiction
It is normal to seek attention from others. It is part of shaping your own identity. But it can get out of control if it starts to feel like an addiction. You feel great when you get a lot of likes and support, but when no one responds or responds negatively to one of your posts, you can feel down. To teenagers who depend too much on the acceptance of others, the selfie culture can be even more dangerous. They might appear to be pretty shallow, but in fact, they could be struggling with low self-esteem.
Power to the People
There are cases where seeking self-validation through selfies and other posts could be a positive thing, not only for the person posting but for society as a whole. Social media provides a platform for marginalized groups like people of color, the LGBTQ+ community, and migrants to make themselves heard and seen in mainstream media. The result is greater diversity in the images that are out there for young people to see.
And while marginalized people run the risk of being victims of hate speech when sharing pictures and personal information online, they also contribute to the growth of a global community of like-minded people that offer support. This can spark changes on a larger scale. Movements like MeToo and Black Lives Matter started online as a result of marginalized users coming together and calling for change.
Trolling
If you spend time online you have probably met the beast known as a troll. In fairy tales, the troll is an angry and ugly beast who hides underneath bridges and in forests, threatening to eat billy goats or stealing away innocent children. Nowadays, online trolls hide behind their computer screens waiting for the perfect opportunity to post comments that cause trouble, inflict pain and steal away people's self-esteem.
Similar to selfie posting, the troll seeks attention. So responding to or sharing a troll’s post could encourage them to continue. Trolling is a form of cyber-bullying, because trolls get pleasure from hurting others and sometimes do it to boost their own egos.
It could be tempting to write something unkind online. Most people have done so in the heat of the moment. If that happens, apologizing afterwards is the best way to go. Remember that threatening people online is against the law. So ignore, block or report it to the police the next time a troll strikes.
Information Overload
The internet makes it easy to always stay informed and up to date with the latest news and facts about anything and everything. Now, people have access to knowledge that used to only be available to a select few. One might say that this makes for a more democratic society.
However, an increasing number of people get their news from social media. This could pose some problems. Your social network decides which pieces of news reach you. For an article to appear in your feed it has to be liked and shared a number of times. Also, a lot of the news out there is fake. Sensational headlines lure people to click and share, at the risk of making ill-informed decisions.
Living life online comes with uncountable benefits. You can connect with people all over the world, accomplish changes in your community, and learn new things on pretty much any topic. But in many ways, life online has also proven to be more complex, as it requires people to keep a critical mind and be cautious and careful when interacting online.