Hello one and all!
Today's post is a piece I submitted in a writing contest a while back, I believe with HerCampus. I saved my entry so that I could share it with all of you if nothing came of it. Most of you are aware that my current writing interest is writing stories outside of myself, fiction stories, and not so much centered on personal anecdotes. This piece does not align with my desire to write fiction and is in fact quite a personal piece about myself. I'm not really interested in sharing the personal details of my life right now for reasons that feel too vulnerable to share here (which is... kind of the point). However, I wrote it to be read by an audience, so read by an audience it will be. I love sharing my work, and while the piece is confessional in nature, it wasn't written to be. It was written to be read and enjoyed by an audience. I have a lot of short piece I've written over the years that I want to share with you guys, and this is one of those pieces.
The prompt for this post was as follows:
"What does it mean for you to come of age in a hyper-online, always connected world?
Living in the digital age can mean something different to everyone, and we want to hear what it means to you."
I wrote the following piece (as far as I can tell from my record) on July 15, 2021. I hope you enjoy!
When I was sixteen, my best friend and I started casually dating each other, and we talked to each other every waking minute. When we weren't together, we texted each other. From 5:00 in the morning to late in the night, we were always together, whether in person or on our phones. That relationship ended treacherously. He said he wanted to start using his phone less, so he wouldn't be texting me as often, which I understood, considering we literally were never not talking to each other over text. What I wasn't prepared for was for him to slowly but surely drop out of my life entirely. Suddenly he made an effort to talk to everyone that wasn't me, and it took me nearly six months to realize it was over. When I think of life in the digital age, that's honestly the first thing I think of. I wonder how things would have been if we hadn't spent every moment texting each other. The let-down would have been so much easier; instead, I had practically become addicted to talking to this boy.
That's just one example of the torture we can inflict upon ourselves by living in the digital world. That's not to mention reading negative comments (whether about ourselves or someone else) online, social media stalking someone our crush used to date just so we can find old pictures of him even though we know it will only make us upset, or measuring how liked we as people are based on how many likes the photos we post get.
With all that said, however, we can take that into consideration and realize that the digital world is just like the natural world. It is beautiful and unique, and in its uniqueness, it has unique dangerous--but it has unique privileges too. People can get hurt in the digital world, but people can also find joy in the digital world.
I've been blogging for eight years. I started writing because I needed a place to talk about my thoughts and opinions on literature, but my online writing platform has since transformed into a way to connect with others and have a positive influence on the lives of others. I think of friends online I've met throughout my life. Some of them are from the same place as me and have moved away (as have I), and some of them are from all over the world. Thanks to social media, I can keep in contact with them easily and see what they're doing with their lives, no matter where in the world any of us are.
Thanks to the digital world, we can also meet people we would never have the opportunity to without it. My little brother is an actor and was a huge participant in his high school's theatre program. When school shut down due to the corona virus pandemic, he had to find a new way to perform while he couldn't be in plays. Like many others, he took to TikTok and started making comedy videos. Slowly but surely, he gained a lot of success there, until he finally exploded with his "Red's Kinda Sus" parody, earning himself thousands of followers and millions of likes. He started building a community on TikTok, then started live streaming on Twitch, where he gained more followers. My little brother's career as a professional social media influencer has become a huge part of my family's lives. Everyone helps out with his platform in some way, and we have met the most amazing people there. Personally, I am immensely grateful for the opportunity to be a part of this digital community. I get to interact with young kids every day and help them navigate life; it makes me feel more prepared for my future career as a teacher once I receive my bachelor's degree.
Living in a digital world can be crazy. It can feel trapping and destructive. It can feel excruciatingly lonely. But it can open doors to wonderful opportunities and connections.
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