“My So-Called Life” with Social Media

My birthday happened to fall on the day of class this week and, boy, did I feel old as we talked about the history social media!  I remember very clearly the days of ICQ, Napster and dial up internet.  Those were my first experiences with early forms of social media.  I would spend hours popping in and out of chat rooms with complete strangers and downloading copies of movies and music and trusting that my downloads would not be interrupted as I slept!  My brother was (is) much more tech savvy than I and he loved to make up fake profiles and mess with people in chat rooms.  I learned from him that most people online were not who they seemed to be.  This fact hasn’t changed so when I think of social media, my gut reaction is to be cautious.

I am not a heavy social media user personally or professionally.  I went through a Pinterest phase (didn’t we all) when my kids were small and felt guilty every time I didn’t cook a fancy meal or throw an extravagant birthday party for my child.  Over time, I lost interest in ‘pinning’ hundreds of ideas that I knew I would never go back to.  Now, I only use Pinterest for very specific searches.  For example, when I am planning a trip, Pinterest is a good way to quickly find links to blogs and activities for our trip.

Facebook is the only social media that has really stuck – I’m showing my age again, aren’t I? When living away from family (my parents in Alberta and my husband’s family in Ontario), Facebook has been a great way to keep in touch and share information.  I also love checking in on old friends and people who I otherwise would have lost touch with.

Professionally, I use social media sparingly.  I am definitely a lurker.  I will search for articles or lessons for myself or other teachers but I very rarely post anything.  I used to post online far more often but I had a scare about 15 years ago when I was teaching a lesson to a group of Grade 8 students about the fact that anything that is put online is there forever.  To show an example, I Googled myself and was able to show the students some of my online presence.  Then, I Googled my son who was two at the time and was horrified to find a picture of him online that I had not posted.  I spent a few hours tracing the origin of the picture and found it was from a baby photo contest at the mall.  I was able to get his picture removed from the site but the lesson I learned was to be very careful about sharing personal information.

I titled this post after a show I watched in High School and have now introduced to my teenage daughter.  Tonight, I read an article about a mom who has rediscovered this amazing show and it really hit home for me.  As a side note, if you haven’t seen My So-Called Life, you can check it out on Disney+.