Hello

but sometimes, you see a little girl doing her makeup for twelve thousand instagram followers. she’s nine. sometimes you see a man breaking up with his girlfriend for youtube likes. sometimes you are standing in a room and are in the background of fifty snapchat stories but in nobody’s actual lives. 

it’s mostly okay. but so many of us grew up in a time where they basically ignored the internet while teaching us cursive in school. digital literacy was “don’t look at wikipedia”. none of us knew what the next generation was being set up to. we taught ourselves our own rules. many of us, it didn’t come soon.

it’s mostly okay. but the other day, i asked my freshman students: if you could, would you go back in time and take the internet away from yourself in middle school? if so, when do you think is the right time to be exposed to social media?

over and over: yes. yes. yes. i’d go back and never look up those skinny tips. i’d never spend so many weekends in the dark in communities that encouraged me to self-harm. i’d never lose my brother to radicals. i’d never, i’d never, i’d never again.