Today's post is a different kind of post than what I normally do. This is going to be part of a series called Girls' Guide To Living (GGL). The series is a collaboration with two lovely bloggers called Emily and Paige, and each of them are going to be doing the same post over on their blogs! The theme is going to be different every week and the series is running for four weeks. The series is designed you help you and give you motivation to change your life around for the better: whether that be to calm your worries, or to help you get more active and live healthier. Today's theme is social media, and whether it's a good thing or not.
I've always been one to be obsessed with social media, I spend quite a lot of my time on it - Instagram and Twitter being my favourite. I never used to see a problem with it, but recently I've been seeing a lot of negativity on these sites.
Let's start with the good points.
Social media can be so inspiring for me. Being a YouTuber and Blogger, lots of the posts and video ideas I come up with are from social media. If I see a picture of something I love, it can inspire me to create something based on that. Or say an event that's happened, that can give me ideas for videos/posts related to that event: For example, the vote for gay marriage in Ireland has inspired me to write a post about the LGBT+ community (which is coming on Tuesday so look out for that).
It can be motivating. Now that summer is approaching there are lots of tips and tricks of how to workout well and get the perfect 'Bikini Body'. There are also lots of revision and study tips, and ways to get you motivated for your exams at the end of the year. Personally I find these kind of posts and videos so motivating, they just make me want to get up and get out of my room and just go have a workout or get out of bed and start revising, however I know for some people these can make you feel bad about yourself, which leads on to one of my later points. There are also loads of ideas of things to make, ways to decorate, things to do in the summer, products to try and so much more that just make me want to try out some new things and get creative.
It keeps people connected. Last year my cousin Dominic went to Australia for six months to play cricket. Social media was an amazing way for us to keep up to date about where he was and what he was doing, but also to see his photos. In this instance social media was incredible for us because he was the other side of the world and we could still see what he was doing. It's an amazing way of keeping in touch with family and friends that live far away.
You can share your interests with thousands of people. Blogs and YouTube channels are a prime example of this because really, anyone who writes a blog or creates videos are just simply sharing their content, skills or opinions with anyone in the whole world, and that's a really crazy thought for me. The fact that something I created on a Sunday afternoon could be shared with thousands of people is just such a concept to me. I still haven't quite got my head around the fact I have viewers and even friends now in America and France and tons of other places.
Create personal spaces for your own thoughts. There are so many sites for this. Sites where you get your own little corner of the internet, which you can decorate however you want, whether that's with words, pictures, quotes, thoughts or opinions. That in itself is a wonderful thing. The fact that we can have our own space to do whatever we want is awesome, it's like having your own cyber-room. And you can share your work with everyone and anyone, keep it to yourself, or limit it to your friends and family, depending on what you want to do.
There are so many amazing things about social media but sadly a few things can ruin it.
It can be addicting. I would like to say I'm not addicted to social media, but I go on it multiple times a day. I think we should try limit the amount of time we spend on it because it can be annoying when you're trying to talk to someone and they're just on their phone 24/7. Especially when they don't respond to you because they're too busy checking their social media to pay attention.
People think the likes matter. 100% honestly, I do get annoyed if my posts don't get the same amount of likes they normally do, or get excited if they get more. But at the end of the day, likes and comments don't matter. Your self worth is not defined by the amount of likes you get on a selfie. Likes don't mean anything, yeah okay, it's a great feeling you get if you get a lot of likes when you've spent a long time creating something, but you should be creating it for you, not for other people. If you like what you've made and you're proud of it, who cares what others think? If you're happy with it, what other people think shouldn't matter. I think sometimes we can all fall into the trap and get caught up with likes and comments, even me.
There's a lot of hate. There's so much hate going around social media at the moment, especially on YouTube and Twitter. YouTube creators are getting picked apart for every wrong move they make. I have seen so many people devoting their time to creating hate accounts or saying mean comments on peoples' posts. Firstly, it's such a waste of time when they could be doing better things than writing these horrible things and picking apart other peoples' lives. These people don't even know who they're picking on and how it could be making them feel. It makes me sick. Cyber-bullying is actually illegal yet people still think it's fine. It's not.
It can create false images in your mind. You always see this pictures of really skinny girls with amazing tans and long hair and for some people I think it makes you feel like that's how you should look and it can make you feel really bad about how you look. It can really lower your self esteem. But really everyone is beautiful in their own way and these photos were probably edited and photo shopped anyway.
I hope you guys enjoyed this post and found it thought-provoking.
So, do you think social media is good or bad?
Angharad xoxo
There are so many amazing things about social media but sadly a few things can ruin it.
It can be addicting. I would like to say I'm not addicted to social media, but I go on it multiple times a day. I think we should try limit the amount of time we spend on it because it can be annoying when you're trying to talk to someone and they're just on their phone 24/7. Especially when they don't respond to you because they're too busy checking their social media to pay attention.
People think the likes matter. 100% honestly, I do get annoyed if my posts don't get the same amount of likes they normally do, or get excited if they get more. But at the end of the day, likes and comments don't matter. Your self worth is not defined by the amount of likes you get on a selfie. Likes don't mean anything, yeah okay, it's a great feeling you get if you get a lot of likes when you've spent a long time creating something, but you should be creating it for you, not for other people. If you like what you've made and you're proud of it, who cares what others think? If you're happy with it, what other people think shouldn't matter. I think sometimes we can all fall into the trap and get caught up with likes and comments, even me.
There's a lot of hate. There's so much hate going around social media at the moment, especially on YouTube and Twitter. YouTube creators are getting picked apart for every wrong move they make. I have seen so many people devoting their time to creating hate accounts or saying mean comments on peoples' posts. Firstly, it's such a waste of time when they could be doing better things than writing these horrible things and picking apart other peoples' lives. These people don't even know who they're picking on and how it could be making them feel. It makes me sick. Cyber-bullying is actually illegal yet people still think it's fine. It's not.
It can create false images in your mind. You always see this pictures of really skinny girls with amazing tans and long hair and for some people I think it makes you feel like that's how you should look and it can make you feel really bad about how you look. It can really lower your self esteem. But really everyone is beautiful in their own way and these photos were probably edited and photo shopped anyway.
I hope you guys enjoyed this post and found it thought-provoking.
So, do you think social media is good or bad?
Angharad xoxo
This was a great post - really thought provoking! x
ReplyDeleteWonderful post darling. <3
ReplyDeleteThank you <3 x
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