Online Foot Print

For as long as I could remember my parents and teachers told me to be careful what I put on social media. They always remind me that my future employer will be looking at my social media platforms. I always keep that in the back of my head when I post something. A question I often ask myself before posting something is “Would I want my future kid seeing this or posting something similar? This question often keeps me centered. I never post pictures that have illegal activies shown in the background or could be seen as inappropriate. Most of my posts are of great memories. It like to think to myself that I post for myself to look back on but there is a part of me that I post to get likes and acknowledged by others. 

After reading the Atlantic article Is Facebook Making Us Lonley?, I started to really think about the question and relating it to my life. I do admit I sometimes get jealous when I see someone post a picture from an event that I did not attend. I often catch myself comparing my life to others based off their social media pages. I think the way people only use social media to post only the good things makes people think that peoples lives are better then theirs. People should not feel obligated to post the negative things about their lives, but I feel like we need to show that the life people portray on social media is only part of their stories. 

This article made me want to look into my 

online footprint and what social media tells 

my audience. I belong to Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, Vsco, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest to name a few platforms. I wanted to see what people knew about my life just by looking at it. I was shocked at how much information one person can learn about me just from my social media accounts. Some of the information includes, what schools I went to, what town I live in, where I vacation, my birthday, how my friends are, what I do for fun, my accomplishments, my goals, my plans for the future, and many other things. That’s crazy how much one can learn from my social media accounts. I joined all these social media platforms to feel connected to my friends and families even when I cannot be with them in person. Does it really make me feel connected to them or just shows me how not connected we really are? One thing I did notice that is not really shock is that there was no place on my social media accounts that showed my struggles. I am not saying that I am going to start showing and posting my struggles or when I am sad I am just going to remember that people do not post the bad things and learn to not compare my life based of people’s social media life. A link to the Atlantic article is here

Attached below is also a great video to show real life vs social media life.