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Here's another teenager's view on social media. I don't have an account for any of these, and I don't want one. I have, let's see, HN, GitHub, and Stack Exchan

Here's another teenager's view on social media. I don't have an account for any of these, and I don't want one. I have, let's see, HN, GitHub, and Stack Exchange. Those accounts are my online identity, which I make sure is separate from my real identity. If you want to contact me, you can email me, or if you know me in real life, you can text me. I don't feel smug about not having those accounts, but I'm not embarrassed either. Maybe it's just because I don't socialize with the "normal" people my age, or something else, but more people than you might expect understand when I say I don't have an account. I don't want them because they would be more of a time suck than the Internet already is, and no one really has trouble finding me.

xvedejas 12y ago
I mean, you sound like a pretty typical hacker kid... which is to say, not a typical kid that people care about when discussing things like market share or teen trends.
stanleee 12y ago
I am the same age as the OP but also have different experiences. I've never used Instagram, and frankly don't see the point in people posting useless pictures of themselves or showing friends what they are eating now. It makes me sick when I see people smiling for their smartphones and then desperately refreshing the page/app in hope of satisfaction in the form of likes. This summarizes that perfectly: "If I don’t get any likes on my Instagram photo or Facebook post within 15 minutes you can sure bet I'll delete it." This also makes it clear to me that those social platforms are not about sharing your life with others, they are about validation and a need to be seen/recognized. Even using Snapchat, which apparently has no likes or comments, does not make sense to me then. If you use Snapchat to post pictures about how bored you are, why bother in the first place. Find something interesting to do and be done with it. There are so many important and much more valuable things that one can do than to waste time on social platforms. One thing did make me smile, though: "I only know a handful of people (myself included) that believe Snapchat does delete your photos.". Of course they delete them. It's not as if those pictures had some kind of value, right? Also: "[...] when photos are “leaked” or when there’s controversy about security on the app, we honestly do not really care.". That's the right attitude. Don't care what happens to your data and you might as well find yourself in Airstrip One some day.

xvedejas 12y ago

I mean, you sound like a pretty typical hacker kid... which is to say, not a typical kid that people care about when discussing things like market share or teen trends.

stanleee 12y ago

I am the same age as the OP but also have different experiences. I've never used Instagram, and frankly don't see the point in people posting useless pictures of themselves or showing friends what they are eating now. It makes me sick when I see people smiling for their smartphones and then desperately refreshing the page/app in hope of satisfaction in the form of likes. This summarizes that perfectly: "If I don’t get any likes on my Instagram photo or Facebook post within 15 minutes you can sure bet I'll delete it." This also makes it clear to me that those social platforms are not about sharing your life with others, they are about validation and a need to be seen/recognized. Even using Snapchat, which apparently has no likes or comments, does not make sense to me then. If you use Snapchat to post pictures about how bored you are, why bother in the first place. Find something interesting to do and be done with it. There are so many important and much more valuable things that one can do than to waste time on social platforms. One thing did make me smile, though: "I only know a handful of people (myself included) that believe Snapchat does delete your photos.". Of course they delete them. It's not as if those pictures had some kind of value, right? Also: "[...] when photos are “leaked” or when there’s controversy about security on the app, we honestly do not really care.". That's the right attitude. Don't care what happens to your data and you might as well find yourself in Airstrip One some day.