Hi, my name is Emma Delucchi and the world of digital and social media was introduced to me by my twin sister Ana. Of the two of us, I am definitely not the early adopter. It was the summer after 6th grade, I was still that weird kid who wore long sleeve shirts under their short sleeve shirts, and very conversely Ana was branching out and seem to have a way better conceptual understanding of social skills than I did. So one day, when one of my (many) searches for Ana ended in the basement of our house, in our computer room, watching her make a Facebook account, I was thrown for a loop. I grew up hearing what seemed like horror stories about MySpace and people being tricked by complete strangers, so my barely 12 year old self was apprehensive about the whole thing (you also technically have to be 13 to have an account, though a fake birthdate allowed many kids to get around this rule). But the necessity of not being left behind by my adventurous sister eventually brought me to that (now almost iconic) “Welcome to Facebook” page. And with that, I became a digital citizen, so to speak.
While I am still (and probably never will be) an early adopter of new social media, I feel like I am as thoughtful as possible with the social media I do participate in. Facebook was obviously the first for me, and it’s been my tried and true since 2009. I like it because it’s very informational based, like I feel like you can learn a lot about a person/ a person’s life by their profile. It’s pretty fun to go all the way back and see what I posted when I first got it. Keeps you humble. I tried to get into Twitter, but I feel like I never had that much to say so that app got deleted a couple weeks after I got it. Snapchat I like (my name thing is emma.d) because it’s a fun way to communicate. I really like that there’s the story thing because I want to share parts of my life with people but some things just aren’t important enough to put permanently up. I do have Instagram (emma.delucchi), as of a couple years ago, but I’m not as into it because I feel like you can’t express yourself as well with a few square shaped photos. Though there are those who love it and I say power to them. As far as mindfulness on social media goes, I try to be as good as I can. Let me tell you, there have definitely been some learning experiences (I got called out by my dad in 8th grade for complaining about how much homework a math teacher gave). I’ve learned that, as in life, you get a lot farther by spreading positivity than the opposite. That is how I attempt to portray myself, at least, on social media. There’s a lot of bad in this world, so the fact that I can make someone’s day a little bit better by liking their status or commenting something nice on their picture means the world to me. I love that kindness is so easy to give and so well received on social media. However, the thing I like most about social media is how easy it is to bring people together. My father is Peruvian, and sharing your life with an entire half of your family thousands of miles away is not always the easiest. My mom’s side of the family is huge (my grandma is the oldest of 13 and my grandpa is the oldest of 9) and it’s not always feasible to stay in touch with everyone year to year. Facebook has allowed me to share my life, my accomplishments, my interests, and my progress as a human being with my family and friends, whether they live 10 minutes from me or 10 hours. This is why I choose to be a digital citizen. Not because of cat pictures, not because of how many friends I have, but because it makes the world just a little bit smaller.
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December 2015
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