With knowledge that future employers or admissions boards would possibly take a look at my social media accounts, I have always been mindful of what I post, even though there is nothing I could post that would potentially cost me a position. I believe many people, or at least I hope that many people, have this mindset and steer clear of controversial and inappropriate postings. What social media users don't realize, however, is that all of their followers and friends are going to judge what they post just the same as their superiors. I would venture to say most people don't worry about this given all of the posts that state, "This is my page, so you can delete me if you don't like what I have to say." Although I agree that you should have this freedom, there is a fine line between your opinion and just being downright rude. People often forget, too, that things like sarcasm and the joking tone you use in your head when typing a post are not conveyed in the words on the screen. It is for these reasons that several people have been highly criticized for their posts and placed under scrutiny by a large group of people on social media. For this reason, I will continue to stay cautious and consider my posts before mindlessly submitting them for the world to see. If others were smart, I believe they would take this advice as well. Regardless of whether your intentions are good in nature or not, it is not worth the risk of your entire reputation.

As someone who is constantly paranoid, I do not play around with my privacy when it comes to social media. I also do not think it's smart for others to leave their accounts open for anyone on their to look at and gain information. In the past week, I have learned that I still not have been putting up as large of a guard as I first thought, though. All of my accounts are protected by password, as is my cellphone, and my accounts have been set with all of the privacy settings that only allow friends of mine to see them, and I am quite choosy with who I allow to "follow" or "become friends" with me. I also do not save my card information to anything or click on random links to suspicious websites. I have even been to the point where I had a serious talk with my grandma so that she would not tag herself in my posts on Facebook anymore because she is prone to hacks as she does not deny any of her friend requests and naively believes everyone is good. As for me, I am suspicious of every person I don't immediately recognize on the Internet. In the last few days, I have taken even further measures and gotten creative with my passwords, ensuring that each is unique from any other site that I am signed up on. I feel like everyone needs to take these measures to protect themselves, even though most of these things do provide quicker access and can be beneficial. Personally, having to memorize a few extra passwords and take out my debit card when I want to make a purchase are definitely worth not taking the risk of getting hacked and having all of my information stolen. In this day and age, people are capable of things that some of us could never imagine, and although it is sad, we, as a society, need to be more leery and less trusting of people we don't know.

In class, we have mentioned that many people do not take the time out of their day to let people know about major life events that have occurred. In a way, I feel like this is a huge pitfall in our society because it's very unfortunate that people cannot share big news with the people we are closest to. On the other hand, though, major news isn't always good news, and I feel that social media is incredibly useful when sharing information without having to repeat it over and over to everyone you know. I have recently experienced the first as one of my best friends from high school got engaged to one of my cousins, actually, and I did not find out until I saw a Facebook post about it close to a week after it happened. I would be lying if I said that I didn't hurt my feelings because it really makes you wonder if you weren't important enough to be personally contacted or told in person. However, another relative of mine had a daughter two years ago today, and unfortunately it was known before she was born that she was going to suffer from a birth defect, CDH. Because she moved away, she has kept up with family on updates of her condition and progress through a Facebook group. I am tremendously grateful for this because with a notification, I never missed anything that was going, especially when things were unpredictable in the beginning. I think it would be awesome if Facebook and other social media accounts would add an easier way to send these out without having to be tagged in a post or always being notified of a particular person's posts. Maybe one day the algorithms will have a better way of showing us these posts that we want to see.

Social media is definitely a way for people to put themselves out there and show the world who they are, but sometimes this can be taken too far. When I do go to post a picture of myself, or even when my mom wants to post a picture I am included in, I have to check the picture, then zoom in and look at it, and finally rest and take another look before I am satisfied and allow myself or my mom to post the picture. Social media has instilled this narcissism in all of us, even though it has been around since the beginning of time. I have always worried what people thought of me, and it is for this reason that I stay conscious of my posts and seek this approval. I have friends who will post selfies of themselves to Instagram for a quick confidence boost as they thrive off of the likes and comments it can receive. I have never done this, but I cannot deny that I have considered deleting pictures when they weren't receiving a lot of attention right away, as embarrassing as that is. I think a lot of people, even myself sometimes, would be happier if there weren't social media accounts to display yourself on, especially as you begin to compare yourself to these "perfect" people who get all kinds of likes, who actually just used two different apps to change their appearance and then added a filter to top it off. It's a sad world we live in, knowing that this is how many of us find self-gratification.

Many people use social media to amplify their spunky, outgoing personality that is epitomized by their social butterfly persona. These people are outspoken and are seemingly carefree of what anyone else thinks of them because they're living their best lives, and they want to share it with the world. They also genuinely care about what others are posting and pay close attention to what they're reading. My mom is one of these people, and I wish sometimes that I could be. There are other people who use social media just to take a break from life for a minute and escape from the world by scrolling down a timeline where everyone else voices their opinions, hardships, and celebrations. I feel that I fall in the latter group. Even though I have stated before that I simply want to live in the moment and do not care much to post on social media (which is still true), I wish that I still had the other characteristics that come with the people who take part in the active social media usage. When school is in full swing, stress and anxiety peep in and try to take over, and I'm sure most students can relate to this. Throw in working a few days a week, club meetings, and mandatory events to attend and one's plate is pretty much full. I love everything I do, and I am happy to do it, but sometimes it all becomes too much. So where do I go? To social media, of course, because while I am scrolling and clicking from one site to the next, all the other things go away for a short period of time and my brain can rest for a bit. Social media is my reward system and my time waster. When I have down time, social media is my first stop, and although most see this as a way of coping with "loneliness", it is simply my reliever of stress and landfill of frustrations. This all sounds fine and good, so why do I wish that I could be the opposite? Mostly because the other people efficiently portray that they do not have anything to worry about, even though they surely do, and it would be enjoyable for me to be able to take life a day at a time, little by little, and stop taking it all so serious.

With the recent shooting that took place at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, a lot of my social media timelines are filled with nothing other than news reports from this tragedy, pictures of the suspect, and more than anything, posts from the students and parents affiliated with the school who will be scarred for the rest of their lives. Because these students are so active on social media already, it is not surprising that this is what they took to in order to express their feelings about what happened on Wednesday. Reading each post makes me feel even more remorseful for the pain they had to endure, given the videos on Snapchat that had the rifle going off in the background and pictures of texts between family members who did not know what the outcome would be that day. I am glad that they are using these media outlets to take and have a voice, hopefully to make a difference. However, many others are using the media in a negative way-a lot of politics are being thrown out there, and it is disheartening to me that pushing an agenda is the priority when 17 young lives were lost. Yes, something needs to be done, but spreading so much negativity is dividing our country when those who were victimized should be lifted up and helped to find peace. I saw an article that said Russia was using bots and troll accounts, just as they did in the 2016 Presidential election, to  divide us. They have posted pro-gun ads and also ads that were against it. Manipulation of our media by foreign countries as well as those who do not consider their words before posting are out of hand and something needs to be done about it.

The act of someone or something "going viral" seems to be one of the most random things, and although there are cues for the hows and whys of it happening, most posts aren't created with the intention of it spreading hundreds of thousands of times. During winter break, a friend from high school shared a tweet that had a blurry, low quality picture of her Christmas tree and then a regular photo of the Christmas tree with more detail, and she correlated this to her wearing or not wearing her glasses. It was clever, and to many who rely on contacts or glasses, it was probably relatable. However, generic twitter pages stole the tweet and started sharing it as their own and it even made its way to Facebook. Undoubtedly, it was even more popular on their pages and she did not get credit, but her Twitter following still grew as a result of it becoming widespread. Many people want this, more or less, 15 minutes of fame, and some even get upset when they share something that has been similarly done in the past does not get the same feedback. Personally, I have never understood this desire to become "famous" because even though it seems awesome to accomplish, there are many people out there who are going to have negative feedback about your post and even about you, because many people go lurking through your pages after this occurs. I have never really posted much on social media though, with minimal pictures and videos on my profiles and few status updates or tweets that are of my own creation. Most of me thinks that no one cares about what I have to say, but it is also because I enjoy having privacy to where not everyone knows every detail of my life and has an opinion about it. With that said, I feel like more people should actually apply the Kermit the Frog meme "but that's not of my business" to their daily lives and butt out.