Social Media

 Social media 

I wanted to explore teenagers and social media. I wanted to explore this because my cheerleaders are always on their phones, recording tiktoks, taking snapchats, etc. I remind them quite frequently to be conscious of what they are posting online. I tell them that they never know who may see it and what they post, reflect on their team and the school. 

The first article that I read was "What is a 'Finsta' Teens and their secret instagram accounts" This article caught my eye because I even use to have a 'finsta'. A finsta is a fake instagram account that you mainly only allow your very close friends have access to. On finsta, there is more of unfiltered content being posted. The article mentioned a college athlete that was kicked out of her sorority and soccer team because a video from her finsta surfaced. While I had a finsta, I was still smart enough to not post anything that was inappropriate, it was mainly used as a "spam" account where I would just post more pictures than the single on I posted on my account. I know that many of my cheerleaders have a finsta or a fikfok (fake tiktok) or a private snapchat story. I remind them that even though it is a small audience that may see it, that doesn't mean that someone cannot screenshot or screen record whatever you post. 

The second article that I read was "Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat: What teenagers think of social media". This article was interesting to me because I for one still have all of those apps and I know that not many teenagers have a Facebook now. I was overall curious about how they viewed these apps. I was glad to see that some of the teenagers talked about safety and privacy they use while using the apps. Once I read this I asked some of my cheerleaders what they thought about some apps. I asked them what they thought about Facebook and Twitter. They told me that older people have facebook and twitter. This made me laugh because when I was in high school (only 6 years ago but they made me feel like it was 16) the big apps to use were facebook and twitter. Snapchat and Instagram were just coming out so those were new apps that we used too. It just made me laugh how different ages can view different platforms.

Image source: Giphy

Overall, I found this topic really interesting because I feel like I can relate to them. I feel like I am in between these generations because I do use a lot of social media myself and I remember what it was like in high school using social media. I also have close relationships with younger girls who have different views on social media that I do, but I can understand their points and talk to them about it.