Social media, something that connects everyone in the world together. However, how does it connect to me? By looking through all my social media accounts: Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Snapchat. I come to see that social media reflect pieces of me.
Reddit typically has a young audience and has a upvote-downvote system that is supposed to stimulate engaging conversation. Reddit is a place where I go to view things that are going on in the soccer world, rap music world, and the business world. Reddit has essentially replaced TV news for me. Along with research, I go to Reddit to interact with other commenters and go deep in thought about specific companies and why they are undervalued or overvalued according to Price-Earnings Ratio and so on. On the other hand, Reddit is also a place for my so-called shower-thoughts. Meaning, that when I think something random I find interesting I just comment it down on Reddit. Overall, Reddit represents my hobbies.
Twitter used to be mainly about celebrities and while that is still a big part of it, now it seems to have become a place where you see fiascos take place. From Kanye West’s Twitter meltdowns to your next-door neighbor calling out the kids who knocked down his garbage can… Twitter has it all. I never take place in those fiascos because I do not like myself to be in the drama. This is because I know subconsciously that while drama may be fun for a bit. Drama brings more drama until eventually you are completely swamped in it. Twitter is the observant side of me, as I never want to take place in what usually goes on in Twitter, but it certainly is fun to observe!
Facebook is probably the most-widely used social media platform. This is because most people, me included, use Facebook as a connection facility. Facebook is where everybody I remotely know is a “friend”. There is also a greater importance on family on Facebook as saying happy birthday to relatives seems to be something I do everyday on Facebook. Throughout my social media I keep a friendly tone but on Facebook I might seem even more friendlier, which might be subconscious because everybody that knows me is on it. However, Facebook Messenger must be the biggest thing I use on Facebook as a lot of people I know are foreign to the U.S. and do not have compatible texting systems or simply no texting option at all. Facebook represents the part of me that wants to get along with everyone.
LinkedIn is a primarily business-professional social media platform where employers, job recruiters, and job seekers all come together. LinkedIn is something that I put tremendous effort into creating and it is something that I continue to put effort into updating. The reason I put so much effort into maintaining my LinkedIn account is that it is fast-becoming my most important thing when applying for a job. I have my own resume of course, but with a LinkedIn account I have found that applying to jobs is easier because of LinkedIn’s easy-apply button. This allows you to send your LinkedIn profile as your job application to wherever you are applying. Because I am using my LinkedIn profile as my application I had to make it so it is essentially a superior resume. Even though I maintain my LinkedIn profile quite well and use LinkedIn to apply for jobs; I do not really interact much on LinkedIn aside from saying the customary congratulations to people on their new jobs. Overall, LinkedIn represents my professional side.
Snapchat is a social media platform that is typically used by a young audience to post stories (usually little snippets) of what goes on in their daily lives. I used to use Snapchat a lot, but unfortunately Snapchat changed their best features in an infamous update that resulted in users, including me, bashing the change. I post nothing on my stories, but a lot of hooliganism goes between my friends and I in a Snapchat group. Otherwise, I use Snapchat to relieve some boredom by looking at some stories hoping that some of them are funny and interacting with some friends until I eventually come up with something better to do. Snapchat is the hooligan side of myself.
Overall, by going through all my social media accounts I have determined that all of them have some part of me and hold some importance to my life. Whether this is my hooligan side shown on Snapchat or the professional side shown on LinkedIn; my social media accounts are all me.