The evolution of social media has been something of a whirlwind adventure, and in its infancy I don’t think anyone anticipated the vice grip it would one day have over our everyday lives.
Since the Internet really started gathering steam in the 1990s, there have been chat forums and pages where people can interact and connect with one another. Then when MySpace was founded in 2003, it revolutionized what would become a social media frenzy.
Enter Facebook the following year. It looked and functioned a lot different than the social media behemoth we see today. The pages were much more customizable, with widgets and games that people could add or remove to make their page their own. There was no photo, video or article sharing. It simply asked “what’s on your mind?” and let you do the rest.
Once Facebook opened Pandora’s box to what social media could be, other players started to toss their hats in the ring such as Twitter, Instagram, SnapChat, Digg, reddit and others. While no two platforms are entirely alike, many share common traits that users may be looking for.
These days, it’s almost taboo not to be on Facebook, garnering puzzled looks and surprise from other people. Social media has become the way of connecting with people from all over the world -- friends, family, distant relatives, friends and acquaintances from high school. Even grandparents have hopped onto the social media freight train. The world has truly never been smaller.
But what have we sacrificed to be connected to one another at all times? Workplaces now check the social media sites of prospective employees, politicians are raked over the coals for social media posts dating back more than 10 years, and people’s lives are seemingly no longer their own.
People now plan events exclusively on Facebook, and if you aren’t checking religiously you will likely miss the memo. Others will send time-sensitive messages to you via Facebook and get angry when you don’t see the message in time to act. It has become expected that one is checking Facebook multiple times every day on the off chance that something has happened -- because otherwise you’ll likely be the last to know.
What happened to private lives being private? While social media has allowed us to stay more connected than ever to our loved ones, it has become an all-consuming monster that devours bits of our lives, one megabyte at a time.
Darlana Robertson is a former Central Albertan now living in Calgary.
