Once upon a time people couldn't instantly see the photos they took. They couldn't adjust the brightness or add a filter. They couldn't immediately crop out randos in the background, and their friends had to wait until the photos were developed to decide whether or not they approved of them. It was a scary time. And, on top of all that, once people had their non-filtered photos, there wasn't all that much they could do with them. Pictures went into albums and occasionally frames, and were pulled out every now and again to show visiting family members. But, for the most part, the only person who really got to see photos was the person who took them.
People taking pictures in the days before the iPhone had to cope with plenty of hardships, including the inability to let anyone they've ever met see any photo they've ever taken. But there must have been positives to a social media-less world (a world in which I've never been unfortunate/fortunate enough to live). Before people had the ability to virtually stalk friends or relatives or acquaintances or people they just met, nobody had to decide what post goes where. Even when MySpace came to be the number one hobby of most 13-year-old girls, there was still just one outlet to post all things you deemed worthy for the Internet.
But now, we are all bombarded by a crazy number of options for all our social media needs. We have Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Vine, Snapchat, Tumblr, Tinder and probably others about which I'm not hip enough to know. And, for a lot of people, FOMO is too strong to only be on one of these sites. Sure, we might think most of them are dumb and claim to be happy just being on Facebook, but plenty of people start slowly adding social media sites to their arsenals after hearing their friends talk endlessly about that hilarious video they saw on Vine or that scandalous tweet they just read. In an effort to not be left out, we tentatively join another site, quickly become addicted and reach a point in our lives where being fully caught up on every social media site we are on becomes a full-time job.
Personally, I love having lots of different social media outlets (who doesn't appreciate that Facebook stalking is no longer limited to Facebook?). But now a new dilemma exists: what post goes on what site? Should a picture be uploaded to Facebook, or is it better suited for Instagram? Or should I tweet it? When taking a photo, should I use the regular camera on my iPhone or should I take it as a Snapchat? We now have to decide if our hilarious thoughts should be shared with the world via Twitter or via Facebook status (the answer to this one is almost always Twitter, in my opinion). Videos can be put on Instagram, Vine or Facebook. I will never understand Tumblr, but I'm sure Tumblr users will tell you that certain things belong on Tumblr and others will be less harshly judged somewhere else.
I wish I had the answer to these questions, but I am not enough of a social media guru to always correctly decide which medium to use each time I want to tell the Internet about my problems. There are too many rules to keep track of, so I just follow one: since I'm #blessed that many adults I know are fairly tech-savvy, if I don't want my grandmother to see it, keep it off Facebook.
Rebecca Hutchinson is a freshman majoring in international relations. She can be reached at rebecca.hutchinson@tufts.edu.
