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[quote=Anonymous]I used to be part of a social group where people posted stuff like this a lot. I met them through my job, which had an extremely social culture and there was a lot of pressure to hang out outside work. People were mostly late 20s/early 30s.

Not just girls nights and bbq’s (though also those) but almost any outing. They’d go shopping with a couple friends and post photos of themselves in the dressing room (#shopshopshop #mirrorpics #howdoilook). They’d go to a movie and post a photo of themselves sitting in the movie theater before the movie started (#popcorntime #welovedanielcraig). I had been an occasional Facebook user before this but being part of this crew sucked me in— I was scrolling my feed multiple times a day. I started posting more. Probably less than some people because I hate how I look in photos so I’m just much less likely to want to take and post a random photo. But way more than before.

Here’s what I learned during my time with this group of friends:

1. This kind of social media use causes drama. Full stop. There were ALWAYS people who felt left out or hurt. I think it also drove insecurity. This was the most insecure group of people I’ve ever been around, and I include myself. It was worse than middles school or high school (pre social media).

2. It reinforces social hierarchies. The people who post the most are the people who can do the most things. Meaning: people with more money, more time, better access to things that will look cool in a photo (nice house, cool work travel, etc). Their posts drive attention, and thus popularity. This was the most high school thing about it. And yes, of course, being photogenic in a friend group that posts every single photo to socials is a big boon.

3. People 100% used it to hurt people or assert dominance. An anecdote: there was a work-related disagreement between two women. The night after it happened, one of them invited two key senior staffers to her house to hang out, then posted the photos of them all drinking wine and laughing to Facebook. The senior staffers were not even aware of the disagreement at the time, but it was obvious to those of us who did know that this was a calculated move to show she had certain people in her corner. There was a lot of behavior like this (see not about drama/insecurity above).

It wasn’t until I moved on from that job that I realized how toxic this all is. I know it’s an extreme example, but it really revealed to me how messed up this behavior is. It destroys relationships, puts people on edge.

I have since quit Facebook, and post to Instagram maybe 6 times a year, generally so relatives and far away friends can see pics of my kid growing up. My account is private and I removed most of the people from that part of my life from my followers, not out if malice, but because I don’t want that kind of behavior in my life anymore.

You can, of course, do what you want. But I think many of you who post everything to social media and don’t care who it hurts might feel differently in 10 years. I think with some distance, you might realize how toxic this behavior is.[/quote]

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