My Social Identity

     I moved to Kentucky from New Jersey during my 7th grade year. upon me moving here, my dad decided to buy a new computer. Prior to that year, we never had a computer in the house. My dad always had a government laptop for working at home and anything that needed a computer, but I could never use it. So, in 7th grade, being the new kid with no friends and feeling very depressed, I discovered the wonders of the internet outside of the stuff they taught me in library class in school. I was amazed, but I remember all the kids at my school being interested in one thing on the internet: Myspace. This was my introduction to the world of social networking. This was also my ticket to understanding what people were talking about and making friends. If I met someone, even for a few minutes of small talk, I would get a friend request that next day. Soon, I wasn't that lonely anymore. I branched out to a few people, and through networking , I knew a lot more. This is the reason why Goodhealth.com said in an article that social networking has been linked to decrease in shyness or loneliness, strengthens your connections with friends and overall increase in self-esteem. I was living proof of this.
     My guidelines for using a social networking website was set by my parents at first. My dad checked it a lot to see if I was using it to talk crap about people or using it for any other dangerous actions. I knew he was checking it because any time I posted anything he didn't like hearing me say, I would hear about it from him. He knew that social identity was just as important as your identity in person. I couldn't just post anything I wanted to look tough, I had to censor myself as if adults were always watching. This was a characteristic I carried with me to maturation to Facebook, where I was at the age that my parents didn't care what I did on there anymore (as long as I wasn't going to jail).
    Facebook became very popular my freshman year. That's when I deleted my Myspace and moved to Facebook. But as soon as I started over with this new social network, I remember thinking " wow this is so dumb" when it was complete. It was the same concept as Myspace that made me stop wanting to check it as often: people saying things I was not interested in and trying so hard to get their number of "friends" as high as possible. I hated, and still do, seeing all my friends makes idiots of themselves doing stuff they wouldn't dare do in real life. It seemed as if no one had any self respect for their social identity on their web pages. This is when I started looking at my own social identity and start taking my parents rules as advice.
    When I first started, I never posted anything on Facebook. I did not want to look as dumb as my friends did posting about wanting to fight someone, doing drugs, and other stuff like that. I kept that stuff to myself. I did not feel this need to show it off, but for other people, this was their social identity. People used Facebook fights and pictures of them drunk or high to show off how cool they were. For me, I found it brave. The Huffington post posted an article on their website talking about police departments use of socail netowrks. They said "One company, SAS Institute Inc. of North Carolina, teaches police that they can scrape and analyze massive volumes of data from the backsides of Facebook and Twitter – something not everyone even knows is possible." This means at any time you can be watched by whoever, even the police. If I'm engaged in illegal activites, I would want the least amount of people to know as possible. But, then I did something really dumb.
      I eventually started using the site a lot more. I had fun with it. It kept me in contact with everyone all the time. I can talk about fun times and enjoy the memories with others who experienced them on there. I didn't care who saw. I started using the site so much, that it wasn't changing me, but it was becoming part of my life. Then, I posted this picture as my profile picture:

I took this picture the night I had a "run-in" with the law. I had a bit of something to drink as I was on top of the roof of a school. Sometime that next week, the cop who arrested me came to my school and talked to my teacher (being good friends already) and told her about it. She pulled up my image from facebook and he said "that's him, that's from the night I saw him." It was annoying to have teachers think of me as a bad kid. I'd rather them not notice me at all, then treat me like a bad student. I didn't need people knowing my personal life anyways.
      I then decided it did not seem necessary anymore to make my internet persona reveal me by posting statuses and pictures about my personal life to show people I'm cool and going out. That's why I decided to take it all down and not focus on my social identity as being cool, but being aware of the power of it. My parents were right when they spoke of the importance of keeping a clean social identity. It's open to the whole world. Anyone, and apparently anywhere, can see it. According to socialbakers.com, a website for making social netwoking sites, There are over 175 million people on Facebook. That's a lot of people.

 It's also one of the few things most Americans have in common and its a part of millions everyday lives. And growing with over 145,000 people joining since last week in America alone. But why is it so popular?  Because it is so addictive for so many reasons. A study from techaddiction.com gave me 20 reason including mood booster, informative and keeping in contact with family. These are all very accurate reasons and everyone has their reason. I found it addictive for me because if I needed plans for the night, they were there and if I missed out, I could catch up quick. Everyone would put up pictures of a party I missed and I could hear from them what happened right on Facebook. These were also very fun and easily accessible memories to come upon. That's all it was good for for me though.
      As time went by, I found it a lot easier to use a telephone to stay in the loop. It was also a lot safer for my image and no worries about starting conflict by talking to the wrong people. My social identity became less and less active. Now, my social networking activity is back to was when I first started. I am aware of who is watching and who is on my Facebook, like family and coworkers. Keep my activity at a minimum because I never feel I have anything to say people have to hear. And if I need to contact people I give them a text. I am out of the hype of social media. I have no posts and can't remember the last time I received a notification. I end by showing you the change in my social identity, or my lack of. I took this picture at my senior prom. This has been my profile picture for 5 months now and I doubt it will change any time soon.