A Mayo woman's view: Our social media lives

by Barbara Daly

I use social media for work – other people’s social media. Otherwise I rarely post to my own accounts.

Privacy was always a big thing in our family growing up - you never told anyone else your business.

This was not necessarily a healthy rule. I think this fear of letting something out still haunts me.

I find it very difficult to expose myself or my life on social media. Not so other people.

It never ceases to amaze me the kinds of information and the level of emotion people are willing to divulge on social media.

But maybe they are the healthy ones? Maybe it is better to share than not and if the only way many of us are brave enough to share is behind the cover of social media then why not?

However I worry about how much of the information shared is actually real or reflects a person’s real life.

It is like an unspoken rule as we all know, that only that which shows us in a positive light can be posted. It is all about possessions, achievements, success and lifestyles. While I may not be a poster I am a scroller.

Much as I tell myself not to, “no good will come of it,” I cannot help myself.

I worry for my children growing up in this world of fake aspirations. As a 50 year old, the content on social media can affect me but at least I have the insight to know why this is so and to shake it off, but will they?

It is hard to look at everyone else’s perfect lives – so many amazing holidays, achievements, smiley family photos and perfect days out - without starting to question your own life! How could you possibly be happy when you do not match up to this?

There is a terrible true-life advert on TV at the moment about a girl who receives a phone for her 12th birthday and from then on, through the media she is accessing on the phone, descends into a spiral of negative comparisons which ends up as anorexia.

As a parent I cannot bare to watch it for the fear it instills in me for my own daughter.

When it comes to social media, comparisons are everywhere. There are the ‘suggested for you’ posts. These are the ones that suck you in and tug at your heart strings, but not in a good way.

The bots behind my social media feed have obviously discovered I am a parent of young children and so I receive lots of posts on parenting, on not letting these precious years pass you by and on all the things you should and should not be doing with your kids.

I also get the ones on grief and loss, sometimes helpfully combined with parenting. I have at times come away from social media in tears or with any confidence I have in my parenting methods in doubt.

How many vulnerable users have had their lives negatively impacted by social media posts that are targeted at them and are not what they should be looking at?

How many people regularly doubt their own success/happiness/relationships/etcetera because it does not live up to what they are exposed to on social media?

I have to wonder where the honesty is in all of this? Where is the balance?

Obviously the social media companies bear responsibility for checking content but I think we all have a role in monitoring our social media lives to ensure a little more honesty and balance.