Dear Lauren,
Write a letter to your 10-year-old self, explaining the role that social media is going to play in your life. Prepare your younger self for the realities of life online (including offline consequences) in 2018 (and beyond)
Dear ten-year-old Lauren,
I know how cool you think computers are. You just learned about basics in Mrs. MacIsaac’s class- they set up your student email and taught you how to use floppy disks. I know you like the computers at school better than home because you like to play with the settings (change the desktop, theme, etc), and Mom and Da only have a windows 95 (In 2006! You’ll still think that’s excessive in 2019) while the school has windows XP. Mom and Da won’t get a new computer till windows vista comes out.
Computers to you, are something you get to explore- kind of like the woods. A wide-open adventure. There’s a lot to discover. You’re also not meant to see everything.
I know you’ll have a piczo site (if you don’t have one already). So do your friends. I know it stresses you out a little bit now. Making it cool. Trying to make your social media accounts come across as cool never really ends, so please don’t dwell on it too much. You’ll be more you as time goes by. (A cleaned, polished, version- but still you kind of)
Soon enough Mom and Da will cave and let you get MSN. It’s fun for the most part. But you’ll quickly learn people are much braver behind a screen. It kind of sucks sometimes. And it’ll stay that way for a while. Hell- even you’re braver behind a screen, but you’ll get better at the brave face-to-face soon enough.
Now, I know you’re asking for a cell phone. You’re gonna have to wait. Not too long. You’ll get it for your 14th birthday. It’s a Keybo (the one you wanted!) and it’s still your favorite to this day.
You’ll get a Blackberry next- but this isn’t the best idea because this is literally when all your friends are changing from Blackberry to literally anything else (At least it feels this way). Also Mom and Da block data so you can’t even use BBM. You’ll get an iPod touch eventually so you can use all the social media apps that you can’t on your blackberry.
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You’ll then get a Samsung s4 in grade 11. This is great because now all your music and social media are on one device. This is kind of when your phone becomes apart of your hand. It’s got everything- Twitter, FaceBook, Instagram.
You’ll actually have two s4’s over the span of 5 years. You’ll only get an iPhone because one thanksgiving long weekend your phone will fall one foot to the ground and you’ll get the black screen of death.
I know it’s 2006 and only college kids really have FaceBook but it two years you’ll be asking Mom and Da to get it. You’ll make a private one in the 6th grade, a secret from Mom and Da but then you’ll feel too guilty and stop using it. You’ll eventually get it for real a year later- but it really only serves as an embarrassing history of you from middle school onwards and was to connect with family and work groups.
Instagram is cool. You’ll get it in high school. It’s pictures. You like it fine but really don’t care that much. It’s your least-intense social media venture.
Last but not least Twitter. Sounds vaguely bird related. Well, you’re not going to join it for three years but it’s hands down going to be your favorite. You’ll use it to mostly make jokes (after a phase of just using it to follow celebrities, then live tweet TV Shows- Okay the TV show doesn’t really stop). People will say you’re funny. Which I know sounds like a big deal because right now people mostly say you’re ‘such a serious child’, but having this outlet for humor makes you feel good. It even improves your writing! (Oh yeah, you’re in media school concentrating on screenwriting- but that’s a whole other story)
Social media is something you grow with. You’re both kind of awkward deer finding their footing around the same time. It’s almost kind of an embarrassing recorded history. But it’s useful and stressful. It gets easier as just not you, but everyone learns to use it better. You learn to put it down from time to time but your phone is still very much a part of your hand and you have problems not constantly checking. You’re trying to get better. Focus on other things.
(Also the first secret FaceBook account? You lose the password and can’t delete it so these pictures are still out there for everyone. Karma.)
Love,
22-year old Lauren
