Feb. 19, 2014:  It was a Saturday night. I was sitting at my laptop drinking a small glass of the extraordinary Coca-Cola Vanilla. Drink in my hand and laptop on my bed, I was talking aloud about the negative effects of social media. Not to myself, but to two friends on Skype.

I was on Facebook at the time I was having this conversation. Facebook and other social media websites are like crack cocaine--fun for the first five seconds and very addictive thereafter. Even though nothing new really happens, I check mine every day. Wasting so much time on the Internet when nothing new happens is very bad. You don't get back these valuable minutes, which could have, instead, been used to spend quality time with your friends and family.

Even when people are out with their friends, they are still online posting pictures. I do not see the point. I understand if someone posts pictures occasionally, but some people have thousands of photos and they post a few every day.

The only reason I can see a use for social media is to get in contact with someone. There is nothing gained in posting so many pictures. I just see it as a way to get "likes" and "comments" for the attention seeker. It could also cause jealousy among friends. If you decided not to invite someone to a concert and you post pictures of the event, that friend might get very mad.

In my opinion, the reason so many people use social media every day is because they care about how they compare to what others are doing. I couldn't care less about what others are doing and how my life stacks up against theirs. I do not let social media get in the way of spending time with my close friends. Therefore, I might check my Facebook every day, but you will rarely see me post any updates to my profile.

If people took some time to just think about how much of the day goes toward sitting on the couch watching TV and refreshing their computer every five minutes, they might make some changes in their daily lives.

Although I don't see a point to a lot of social media, do not get me wrong. There are positive aspects to it.

Websites like Tumblr are similar to Facebook but are used differently. Tumblr has the same concept as Facebook in that you upload photos and videos, make status updates, upload music, etc. The way that it is actually used, however, is to share interests by posting pictures of your hobbies or by re-posting pictures from other people's blogs. Re-blogging pictures means you are re-posting stuff from other people's Tumblr blogs to your own blog. This is not considered stealing because it shows that you share similar interests with someone else. Therefore, you might try to connect to them by following their blog. I see this as a positive because if someone is shy in real life and has trouble sharing his or her life with others, that person could share online in order to meet new people.

Photo by N. Bower