The Issues With Social Media

I love social media. I love scrolling through various timelines to see what people have been up to (I'm nosy like that!), and reading and writing blog posts about things that are on our minds. Social media's a great place to share things with friends or even strangers; thoughts, feelings, photos, videos, anything! But there comes a point where some people share too much. When too much is shared, where anyone in the world can see it.

Besides writing about my relationships, I'm always extremely careful as to what I choose to post online. I rarely write Facebook statuses, and only tweet pointless things that won't offend anyone in any way. I write blog posts sometimes to vent about things going on in my life, but I have about 10 posts saved as drafts that I will NEVER post online, purely because they are written about people or things going on that I don't feel is the internet's business. It's between myself and the other people involved, I don't need to tell the whole world about it. I feel like most people have a filter, allowing certain aspects of their life to be shared with others, but filtering out the things that maybe the world shouldn't see.

Indirect tweets and Facebook statuses. The way I see it, is if you don't want to say something to someone's face, why would you then post it on the internet, allowing not just the person its aimed at, but ANYONE, to see it? I've had many tweets and even blog posts written about me over the last 6 months or so, for reasons I've made a point of not posting online, purely because even I have respect for the person involved. Even though we may not be close now, I can't deny that when we were, they were a big part of my life that I wouldn't erase. Because of that, no matter what's happened recently, I wouldn't write explicitly about it on the internet because I wouldn't want to hurt their feelings or make them feel like shit. But some people don't share that view.

I understand that people like to vent or rant about things, but in my opinion, that's what friends are for; to rant to, without the whole world seeing. You may be able to delete some things, but there's no guarantee that the person it's aimed at wouldn't see it. Just remember, the internet is forever...