Social media's influence on my life
As I reflect on the topic of social media and its influence on my life over the last 14 years, I find myself wondering something. Did social media I frequented influence me or did my life choices influence the types of social media I sought out and consumed? Take a trip down memory lane with me as I recall way back to a 16 year old kid, having been raised in the late 90's and now exploring the ever-expanding world of the internet and online socializing in the early 2000's.
I say 16 because that is when I recall setting up my first social media page: my very own Myspace. In the early days kids mostly used Myspace as form of expression. You could have your own playlists that queued up when a visitor accessed your page, your profile picture was the very best image you had in your library and probably took hours to decide on, your posts needed to be convey how "mature" you were and so often included those stereotypical famous quotes that sound so profound. There was the "theme" of your page which were a mixed art form: there were pre-made templates you could download, you could mess around with the css code yourself, or you could even pay someone at your school to do a theme for you. It was a strange time, especially for something that, in retrospect, seems so trivial now. But this was the latest thing and it is what we did: spending hours tweaking your theme, updating your music playlist, trying out several different online image filters for your profile picture, amassing as many friends as you could, picking your "top 8" friends who would display on your page.
Myspace was big for a few years but as quickly as it became cool it went out of style with the entrance of its newer and more "mature" cousin: Facebook. I made my first page as I was moving out of the state to keep in contact with my friends back home and kept that profile for more than ten years. I was 18 and decided to move a few states away to explore and adventure on my own. Facebook became a tool to keep in sync with my friends and life back in New Jersey while showing my latest adventures to family and friends. I remember staying up all night chatting, posting pictures whenever I could and making posts about my new life. It was cathartic and helped me feel more comfortable where I was, being able to see and connect with what was familiar back home. When I eventually moved back, my activity on Facebook quickly dropped. As the platform evolved and changed into what it is today, I felt less interested and merely kept it around for convenience ("everyone has a Facebook"). I deleted the account last year and haven't looked back since.
Post-Facebook social media for me consists of primarily one thing: Google Maps. This seems peculiar and strangely nuanced, perhaps not even considered social media by some, but when I thought about this post's evolution Google Maps is what stands out. I use it nearly every single day: checking traffic for my commute, looking for restaurants when my partner and I want to try something new, finding bus routes, checking when facilities open and close, finding phone numbers or websites, reading reviews of places I haven't been yet... nearly all the information I need is started from a Google Maps search. If you didn't know this, you can actually see your own personal timeline of all the locations and trips pinged by the program by going to google.com/maps/timeline. For the month of May, 2019: I pinged 23 locations in three different states. I've used this feature a few times to trace my own steps, and while it sometimes freaks me out how much data is recorded, it is literally a road map of my life and will likely exist for the rest of it whether I want it to or not.
There are a few smaller social media platforms that I have used in between these big three, but none were nearly as significant and worth mentioning in the context of this post. I think these phases of social media follow a rough outline of my own personal growth. Myspace was for the teenage angst and expression; Facebook a more serious and "mature" version of Myspace as I breached adulthood, and now Google Maps: a practical solution to getting the information I need in my every day life. Did these platforms influence me? Well let's reflect on some aspects of this story... Would I spend hours trying to learn css if not for the peer pressure to make a Myspace page look unique? Would I have even decided to move back to New Jersey had I not been constantly reminded of the people and places I left behind via Facebook? Would I have found that Chinese restaurant with the incredible tea I now visit at least twice a month if not for Google Maps? Would I be increasingly wary of the massive trove of data that is being compiled by the Alphabet company (the new parent company name of Google) if not also for the use of Google Maps? The answers vary in significance, but it is clear that these platforms had substantial levels of influence in my life.
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| My last Myspace account profile picture. -Circa 2006 |
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| The "filtered" Myspace profile picture. -Circa 2005 |
Myspace was big for a few years but as quickly as it became cool it went out of style with the entrance of its newer and more "mature" cousin: Facebook. I made my first page as I was moving out of the state to keep in contact with my friends back home and kept that profile for more than ten years. I was 18 and decided to move a few states away to explore and adventure on my own. Facebook became a tool to keep in sync with my friends and life back in New Jersey while showing my latest adventures to family and friends. I remember staying up all night chatting, posting pictures whenever I could and making posts about my new life. It was cathartic and helped me feel more comfortable where I was, being able to see and connect with what was familiar back home. When I eventually moved back, my activity on Facebook quickly dropped. As the platform evolved and changed into what it is today, I felt less interested and merely kept it around for convenience ("everyone has a Facebook"). I deleted the account last year and haven't looked back since.
Post-Facebook social media for me consists of primarily one thing: Google Maps. This seems peculiar and strangely nuanced, perhaps not even considered social media by some, but when I thought about this post's evolution Google Maps is what stands out. I use it nearly every single day: checking traffic for my commute, looking for restaurants when my partner and I want to try something new, finding bus routes, checking when facilities open and close, finding phone numbers or websites, reading reviews of places I haven't been yet... nearly all the information I need is started from a Google Maps search. If you didn't know this, you can actually see your own personal timeline of all the locations and trips pinged by the program by going to google.com/maps/timeline. For the month of May, 2019: I pinged 23 locations in three different states. I've used this feature a few times to trace my own steps, and while it sometimes freaks me out how much data is recorded, it is literally a road map of my life and will likely exist for the rest of it whether I want it to or not.There are a few smaller social media platforms that I have used in between these big three, but none were nearly as significant and worth mentioning in the context of this post. I think these phases of social media follow a rough outline of my own personal growth. Myspace was for the teenage angst and expression; Facebook a more serious and "mature" version of Myspace as I breached adulthood, and now Google Maps: a practical solution to getting the information I need in my every day life. Did these platforms influence me? Well let's reflect on some aspects of this story... Would I spend hours trying to learn css if not for the peer pressure to make a Myspace page look unique? Would I have even decided to move back to New Jersey had I not been constantly reminded of the people and places I left behind via Facebook? Would I have found that Chinese restaurant with the incredible tea I now visit at least twice a month if not for Google Maps? Would I be increasingly wary of the massive trove of data that is being compiled by the Alphabet company (the new parent company name of Google) if not also for the use of Google Maps? The answers vary in significance, but it is clear that these platforms had substantial levels of influence in my life.
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