Look, I'm not a social media person. For most of my life I've actively avoided it. Maybe a little too much. Still, I've never wanted to be that person, so sucked into their online lives that they didn't live a life outside it.
My very first experiences with an online social media account was when I turned twelve. I had promised my sister I would get a Snapchat account, and so I reluctantly obliged. When I got it, I hid the app in the very back of my "Other" folder app. My sister immediately friended me, which I accepted and friended her back. A little later, her best friend also sent friend request, which I accepted. Then I let it lay dormant. I sent streaks to them everyday, but I never tried to get any more friends. Part of it was because I didn't want anyone to know that I had finally succumbed to the peer pressure. I purposefully kept the app hidden in my folder so no one would no it was there. The other things was, Snapchat didn't make me happy. I didn't care what I posted. Most of the time I sent the same plant outside my school everyday. Snapchat was just there, part of my everyday routine in an effort to please my older sister.
After time my sister said it was okay if I deleted it. I was relieved. Far from making me happy, Snapchat was just a drain and one more thing to do each day that brought me no pleasure.
It was much later that I felt like I might want to try social media again. During the second half of eight grade, when I was almost fourteen, my family left on a six month trip around the world. (For more information, see our family blog here.) We were in Bangkok, Thailand one night, and I was desperately missing my friends. Not just my close friends, the people who I barely knew. I wanted people to know what I was doing. So I made an Instagram account in a small restaurant in Thailand.
I accumulated followers after my sister posted about me on her story. It made me smile as the numbers piled up, but I also felt anxiety wondering who to let follow me. I posted about meeting the Elephants in Laos. I wasn't particularly pretty in that picture--sharing fancy pictures of me had never been my goal--but I liked it anyway,
My next post was less down to Earth and a little more glamorous. My sister loved photography, and I was often her subject. We had a photoshoot in our beautiful Bangkok hotel, and I looked more fake and pretty than my normal anxious self.
I didn't post very often, not even finally arriving at Everest Base Camp after our long trek, something I had intended to post about, but never really came down to it. Worrying about posting made me anxious, and I discovered that Instagram brought me more stress than joy. I felt happy when I got a lot of likes, but when I didn't I was much less cheerful.
When we got back to America, I deleted the app from my phone, but not the account. Every once and a while I get emails reminding me of my dormant account. Each are accompanied by an uncomfortable feeling.
I'm still not a social media person. It's brought me more than enough worry in my already stress strewn life. Still though, sometimes I'm sad because I can't share my life with the people I left behind in California. I suppose that's part of the brilliance of social media. My opinion about having an Instagram account could still change, which is part of the reason I've kept my account. But for now, I'm content without the app on my phone.
