Online Life

Oct 26

For a while I've been sharing my life online. A conversation with my dad really struck a chord with me, he doesn't understand why do people share so much online and it made me think why do I share my own life online? Compared to most I actually share very little but I still invite complete strangers to view what I get up to. The bigger my little corner of the internet grows it makes me more conscious of what I'm putting out there, am I displaying an accurate representation of who I really am?

Instagram is how I like to share what I get up to on a daily basis. Sometimes I like to scroll through my own feed to remember what I was getting up to two years ago and I think that is one of the best things about platforms like Instagram. Creating a visual diary and documenting your life creates your own legacy to look back on. A lot of people view Instagram and presume they suddenly know everything you've been doing, we can't judge people in this way it's incredibly to naive. As honest and as open you can be in the images you can put up there is only so much we can take from them. Instagram is like viewing the best moments from somebodies life all popped into one slideshow, realistically I think everybody wants to remember their best moments rather than the crappy ones and that doesn't mean you portray an unrealistic lifestyle.

Since writing this blog I've realised just how hard it is to put your life out there and open yourself up to the scrutiny in others. In general I'm incredibly lucky with the people who view my content, I've got such a positive readership that it makes sharing the harder elements of my life a lot easier but that isn't always the case. If you share all the negative aspects of life you get the reputation of a whiner who seeks attention but then if you don't you are told you're portraying an un-realistic reality of what life is really like. It's easy to forget when you're reading blogs or watching vlogs that we aren't seeing the whole picture and we never will. The more that we share online the stronger the bond between the people viewing then want to know more and more but where do we draw the line? Truthfully I don't think there will be a happy medium between the two so you just have to do what you're comfortable with.

I hold my hands up I can be guilty of judging people from what they put online, we all make snap judgements that aren't correct. It's easy to think that people have everything figured out and lead a perfect lifestyle and then to look at our own lives and think why isn't mine like that? It's been two years since I've had an active Facebook account and since then I've realised how much happier I am without it. You can't compare yourself to someones highlight roll. It's a little like leading a double life in a not so secret agent kind of style. I have my real life and then what I put online which is still very much real it is however tailored to what I'm happy sharing. There are lots of aspects that I don't share online because I simply don't want to, I don't share a lot of details about my family or my boyfriend because that isn't my life to share online. Whilst I would like to think I do portray an accurate representation of myself online with what I do share on social media I guess I won't ever truly know.

What are your thoughts about online life?