Social Media vs Old School

Social media has certainly changed the way we meet and make new friends. I have to say that because of social media I have made friends with people I wouldn’t normally have stopped to talk to. I have a friend on social media who I have known for about 8 years. I have never met with her face to face, but we both have helped each other through some life tragedies and shared wisdom that has helped us both. I enjoy our conversations and was there for her when her mother passed away. The ugly side to meeting people online is people who catfish. I am sure that I have come across my fair share of catfishes, but I can normally weed them out pretty easily.

The problem with social media is that many people create a whole other version of themselves online. Very few people are genuine, and you can know them for years and not really know them until you meet them in person. Even when you meet someone in person, you are only meeting their representative. The real them is still under a few layers of the front person.  In Trinidad where my family comes from we have a saying. “Know me and come live with me, is two different thing.” We speak a sort of sing song broken English, but what it means is this; Don’t think just because you have known someone for years that you know who they truly are. You will never know who that person is until you live with them, have spent real time with them in their comfort zone. Until then you only know certain aspects of them. With social media we are only getting to know an online version of the actual person, the version that they want us to know. And, that could be dangerous, if their intentions are harmful. We have to be more cautious online meeting someone, than in person. In person we can walk away and keep our contact information away from that person. Online, a lot of your contact information is readily available to who ever finds you interesting.