Good evening to you my enthusiastic e-readers,

For this months post, I really wanted to dig deeper into the evolution of social media and to try to fathom if the backlash towards its exaggerated ideal of perfection is warranted.

(All images courtesy of google images)

I myself was rather a late bloomer when it came to signing up to social media. During my early twenties, I was lucky enough to live overseas in Spain for my summer holiday during college and although friends back home were cottoning on, I still was too busy making memories in the real world to think about setting up a page.

It was only after moving back home to my parents after a particularly tough breakup and finding myself with a significantly reduced group of friends that I took the plunge and set up a Facebook account. Within a few weeks, one of my first ever friends from school had reached out to me and we had rekindled an amazing friendship which nearly 22 years later still is stronger than ever. I owe that to Facebook and it’s amazing power of connecting people for sure.

Over the years of working and living in multiple countries which has been an adventure I cherish forever, Facebook and Instagram really has made the world seem so much smaller. Seeing friends celebrating massive achievements like getting married, earning a promotion or having children fills me with so much joy as if it wasn’t for these platforms it would make it so much harder to keep in touch.

But like everything we do, there are of course negative outcomes of living our lives online. If you ask yourself honestly, the last concert or music festival you went to – how many photos, videos, selfies or check in’s did you do? Haha it’s ok I know it’s scary to admit but we ALL are guilty of recording our favourite song in a live show or tagging ourselves with our friends in front of the stage. It’s as if to prove we were really there. I often wonder however, by doing this, are we actually missing the true magic of the experience by watching it through our smartphone screens instead of just using our own eyes?

Another thing that I definitely am guilty of as I am sure we all do, is I tend to only put up a post when I am doing something fun or interesting – whether it being celebrating a friends birthday, seeing my favourite DJ or going “out out”. Honestly who would want to hear about how I’ve just washed my hair or put on a face mask – we try to show the “perfect” side of our lives in the hope of appearing more popular, fun, sociable or just plain cool. I admit that sometimes when I’m scrolling through Instagram and I see these flawless people with amazing bodies, heaps of friends and jetting off all the time to luxurious destinations I do get a pang of jealousy. I think for me though, I just always think back to the notion of we all are portraying our best selves and we should be supporting not criticising each other in this world – there is enough sadness around us already.

Ultimately for me, I have my real life, my real family and friends who know and love ME for who I am and I also then have my incredible social media network which has opened up my eyes to all of you, my lovely followers and has forged some lasting connections for me because of it. There are pros and cons to everything we do in our lives, whether it be the food we eat, the clothes we wear and the life choices we make but as long as we approach the Internet with the respect and integrity it deserves then carry on connecting people and stay HAPPY!

Until next time,

Take care

Keya x