For those millennials born in the wrong era, being low-key proves to be quite the issue. You wonder what you’re missing out on and you retreat into the land of more intimate interpersonal communications. But staying low-key remains a viable world-interface option.
I am currently discretionarily using Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. However, I tend to stay off of larger social media platforms for a number of reasons:
- My number one reason is my sense of privacy. I am a very private person and I feel vulnerable when I am on social media. There are precautions that you can take to remain more private, but the idea of having a personal data-driven profile that establishes personal connections publicly is scary to me.
- My second most personally compelling reason is keeping away from incremental discourse. This meaning, the method in which points are argued online frustrates me. I prefer a more long-form discourse model and cannot keep up with short bursts of argumentation.
- I get caught up in the numbers game. I’m not proud of it, but I definitely pay attention to the number of likes I get. I’ve been able to care less about the numbers as I accumulate experience on my chosen social media accounts. However, there’s still that nagging feeling of content worthiness to my audience.
- I get embarrassed easily by public displays of my intimate and momentary life details. This stems from my (more-than) tendency to overthink how my actions are portrayed. For me, posting an item means bravery, because it means sharing something about myself publicly that someone may not like.
- I can’t stop scrolling once I get started. When I’m on larger social media networks, I compulsively open and close the app on my phone throughout the whole day. I don’t think of doing those things I typically love like reading, writing, and running. I haven’t been able to feel comfortable enough with it to stop checking in on it.
All in all, I prefer to stay relatively low-key on social media for my own sake. I admire those who use it efficiently and to promote their self-brand. There’s an art to branding to social media that I have not mastered, and don’t intend to. I’m content to remain a low-key millennial.