The Kids Are Alright (Albeit well-documented)

It’s really easy to make fun of people who overshare on social media. I’ll be the first to admit that I follow some people online purely because I know that the content they share will either irritate me or make me laugh (which is a terrible reason to follow ANYONE on social media, but I know I’m not the only person who does it). I, too, find myself rolling my eyes when the people I follow spam my newsfeed with pictures of their weddings or children, even though I post the same way with pictures from concerts and of my cat.

While it is an undeniable condition of the present day and how we use the internet, I think it’s worth at least contemplating what effects our current oversharing may bring in the future. My generation is the first to have had their adolescence documented digitally, and I personally can’t wait for the first presidential election that features a millennial candidate just to see the media dig up online receipts from their old Myspace page. Millennials are lucky. Sure, our angst-ridden teenage posts are still floating around on the internet, but because the first half of our lives took place before the advent of the digital camera, a good chunk of our lives and our childhood can remain private. No one can see my poor fashion choices at the turn of the century unless I personally scan and post the photos. Today’s kids do not have that luxury. Their entire lives have been thoroughly documented online. It’s a condition that hasn’t appeared before now, and so we have no idea how it will affect these kids as they grow into adults.

As far as the concept of overfollowing on social media, I’ve noticed that younger users on social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram have started to employ a regulatory filtering method to their following lists. While they continuously follow new accounts, these users are perpetually unfollowing others at the same time. They aim to keep their account at a set following number, usually somewhere around 100-200. While this action seems to be purely taken for the aesthetic of that even following number, I can’t help but wonder if this could be adapted for other users, particularly those who are tired of having a flooded timeline.