This guest blog post was contributed by Eden.
I use a wide variety of social media platforms to engage with my interests and I use them in a variety of different ways.
The one that I use the most is WhatsApp to communicate with my friends about different shows and different activities. I’ve also started to use the WhatsApp channels to follow different things that I’m interested in and I get notifications directly to my phone which is really helpful. I’ve also found this a great way to reduce the amount of negativity that I see on other social media platforms as well because it is often different charities that I volunteer with who post on these channels. I also follow some news outlets on there as well so I’m able to access the news quicker and easier than the app which I find quite unaccessible.
I also use Discord and join servers related to my interests and the groups I volunteer with. I am a moderator for a few different Discord servers as well, for example there is a online book club group I am part of for teen girls and I help moderate posts on there. I also am a member of chronic illness youth panel and facilitate discussions based on the young people’s interests. I also post upcoming events and reminders in that server and overall help to create a safe and accessible space for children and young people all over the world who live with the debilitating chronic illness. Within the server there is also a space for the moderators to communicate and get to know each other. I have found this to be a really beneficial space for me as it’s helped me to meet other young people who are going through similar things to me as well as helped me to feel less isolated and more connected.
On Twitter I follow a lot of accounts relating to my volunteering and advocacy such as by following other youth activists all across the UK. This is really helpful for me to stay connected with the different activist communities as well as it’s really helped me to feel inspired by the work they are doing and motivated me to continue on my journey being a young activist. I also follow a lot of motivational accounts as well as ones that are relating to my interest in reading, for example an account that has competitions or authors. This helps to make the space more positive and engaging and provides me with the opportunity to see things that I’m interested in and discovering new authors.
One of the main benefits of social media is that it can be a great way to learn and explore new things such as hobbies or also find out about what is happening in your local area. It is also a great way to meet other people who are interested in similar things to you and really build up a sense of community. I know personally for me it’s been a great way to explore my activism more. I’ve learned a lot from other people who are on the social media platforms as well as being able to share my voice as a young person on a wider scale with a larger audience. Being involved in online activism has really helped me to feel listened to and imported to take action and make positive change in my community.
I think at times social media can be quite overwhelming especially if there are a lot of posts or messages to reply to. I find this a lot on Discord, especially when there is a lot of different subtopics, although it does help me to streamline what I want to find out about. If there are topics that I am not interested in/ don’t have experience with, I can choose not to be able to see these topics and can hide them which is really helpful. Sometimes when you ‘have a break’ from social media you can miss a lot and I think there’s often a sense of pressure to have to keep up with everything that is going on and catch up with what you missed, so sometimes this can be a struggle for a lot of young people and cause additional pressure.
I think what I would change about social media would be just to have more spaces for people to connect but maybe in smaller capacities or through options like video chats or group chats that make it a bit easier to keep track of. I think Discord does this in a really great way with different channels and subscriptions so you can join which areas might be more relevant to you. I also think some social media needs to have tougher restrictions on what is posted because sometimes the posts can be really negative and have negative impact or young people’s mental health. I think sometimes there’s a lot of posts that slipped through the cracks and the algorithm often shows the same content and not all of it is always the most helpful. For example, I personally used to have TikTok and I kept being shown videos with triggering topics such as suicide and people talking about their mental health struggles and I couldn’t get off that algorithm. I then ended up deleting the app because it was having a negative impact on my mental health, especially during the lockdown where things were really challenging for a lot of people. As a young person who is interested in reading and writing I think there needs to be more of a safe platform for other young people who are interested in books and writing to be able to communicate. I have found personally that the writing community is quite small, especially for young people, and there isn’t a lot of opportunities, so I think that would be a really great social media have, to be able to share your work and connect with other young writers.
