Opinion Essay on Appropriate Age for Social Media

When I was younger, I believed that social media was something that everyone needed to be able to fit in with others, most especially through my transition to middle school. As I progressively grew and was more informed on how social media worked and the people who used the platforms, I decided to not get social media until I got my cellphone. Now, it has been almost two years since I have owned my cellphone and at this point, I don’t see myself getting social media anytime soon.

My first introduction to social media was when I was in fourth grade. Back then, very few students owned their own phones. I noticed that most kids who owned a phone had this strongly admired app named Musical.ly and had common social media like email. I had an email when I was in fourth grade because I begged my mom. I ended up just talking to a few of my classmates and my family. Musical.ly was an app that had the user of the app lip-sync to a song or dance to certain music. As a kid, I thought that this was the coolest thing in the world. In the late fourth and early fifth grade, I had made plans that I was for sure going to get Musical.ly and dance to the song “Closer” by The Chainsmokers, seeing my friends do it. I had my own dance figured out as well.

The next school year at about Christmastime, I noticed that my classmates as well as my older sister, Daniella were using the app, Snapchat, and I began getting curious about the app. Snapchat is known for its famous filters such as the dog filter or the flower crown, which was the feature I enjoyed most on the app. Like Musical.ly, I thought that I needed Snapchat because of the large popularity of it being used among my classmates. I will admit, my twin sister Jessica and I shared a Snapchat account through my mom’s phone under her account and name, which I had utilized for around two months. In my defense, I only used Snapchat to be able to talk to one of my classmates and my cousin from Singapore. At this time, I remained without a phone.

A few months afterward, each person in my family had at least one source of social media. My parents have had Facebook ever since it was released. Danella had her accounts of social media ever since she was about 11-12 years old, beginning with Snapchat and later adding Instagram. When she got Instagram, my family was fine until she made an account under my name and email, “danica_paulino”. I didn’t know I had an account until several emails popped up on my email, just informing me about new features and more. I reported this to my mother and we finally found that my sister Daniella was the one behind it, so she was forced to remove the account on her phone, but to this day the account is still up since it hasn’t been deleted. At this moment, I still had no phone, and couldn’t really see what was on the account or who followed it.

In early sixth grade at around Christmastime, my twin sister, Jherica downloaded the app that was very popular in elementary school, Musical.ly through her Amazon Kindle. Jherica was stuck on that app for a few weeks, only intrigued by the new trends and songs shown online. After that experience, I personally didn’t enjoy the app even though I never used it, mostly just because I could no longer be able to talk to her properly. Thankfully, later in the school year, she found herself not enjoying the app which resulted in her uninstalling the app.

In the months following, my parents both decided to get Instagram because Daniella introduced the app to them. This led to Jherica getting Instagram in the middle of sixth grade. Because of that, I have had several conversations with my classmates throughout the year to try and convince them to get on Instagram.

Peer pressure from social media set in when my close friends Addie and Zystyn said, “Why don’t you get Instagram? I mean, Jherica has it, why don’t you?”

I felt pressured to get social media for months, constantly having the thought of needing social media to fit in and being able to talk to friends on a wide platform. Many thoughts went through my head, thinking about all the pros and cons of getting social media. Sometimes, I still think about whether I should get social media.

Sixth grade was the turning point in my view on social media. One of my old friends moved to another school and had made a “fan account” under my name, featuring photos taken that I was unaware of, named “danica_fan_account”.

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Once I knew about it, I immediately asked the person to take the account down. I constantly asked the person every single day in the class that we shared.

One of my most severe conversations was when the person said that they didn’t care, and it was their account.

“Can you please remove the fan account? I mean, it has my face on it and everything. I don’t really want to be on social media, so can you please take it down?

“No, it's my account. I can do whatever I want to do with it. Plus, I have plenty more photos to take of you and post.”

This made me very frustrated, knowing that my own face was on a public account with my name. This made me have a serious talk with the person, and the person agreed to take it down. Still, two years later, the fan account is still up, without the person keeping their promise to me to take it down. I still feel uneasy about the account, but at least there aren't any more photos to share, even though my face is on it still.

An Instagram account named under my name as a “Fan account” (Picture from Emily Trinh)

At the end of sixth grade, my closest friends had gotten social media, beginning with Instagram and continuing because of the typical idea of when a person becomes a phone or is pressured, the person needs social media. For many months I had considered getting social media, but I was still hesitant. Throughout the summer, I have seen how social media works through my family and friends showing me their platforms. At this point, I did not like how social media made a large impact on how several million people see the world online. Around this time, Jherica and I got our very first cell phone.

In previous years (mostly in summer), I would be with my friends either playing outside or walking to our local QFC area. Now that they all have social media, most times it is them making TikToks, scrolling through their Instagram feed, and looking at other stories on Snapchat. Sometimes when we are together, it is nothing but complete silence throughout the room, and even a simple creak of the door could alarm all of us. We got used to the idea of using technology every single time we hang out, and when we realize we’re online for a long amount of time, we make sure to remind each other to refrain from too much time online.

I do realize some of the importance of social media with some people. Social media is one source of communication among my family and friends since all my direct family lives thousands of miles away. Of course, calling was the main source of communication, but living thousands of miles away wasn’t a good way of communicating just over the phone. Before moving up to Washington in the early 2000s, my parents used the app, “Friendster” to keep in touch with my family living abroad, as well as find old friends that moved here. Since then, my family uses video calling apps through Instagram, Facebook, Facebook Messenger, and Skype. I feel like this type of usage of social media is good since it is hard to communicate with people that live thousands of miles away and haven't seen it for a long time.

Looking back at my whole social media experience, I have been reminded of seeing people getting social media at an alarmingly early age and some of my closest family and friends getting their own. Also, I've learned that I don’t need to have things that others have to be as equal or successful as everyone else. I'm living my life. Sure, social media may show kind, inspiring, and inspirational things, but I cannot stand the mean and rude things that people say to take advantage of a platform that everyone can see. For this, I don’t plan on getting social media anytime soon.