Living in a Fishbowl

First of all, title credit goes to my Mom, it's her favorite phrase... "thank God I didn't have to grow up living in a fishbowl", closely followed by "thank God there were no cellphones when we grew up".  Before I get into my thoughts, I want to know what the heck my parents were doing that they are so glad no one caught it on camera.  

Moving on: cell phones and social media have been a part of my life for my entire life.  Other than what my parents tell me, I don't really know the difference.  My life has consistently been on display for the entire world. Someone has always been able to take a picture or a video of me at any given moment.  It's never really bothered me before, but now it does.

I guess what bothers me most is my inability to control what other people do.  I am not always aware when someone else is filming and I certainly don't know when or what other people are posting.  Whether it's my own Mom posting pictures on Facebook or it's my friends on Snapchat, it seems like I am not in control of my own privacy.  I even got into trouble once over a TikTok video that SOMEONE ELSE posted.  It was a collage of different people that had been filmed.  I didn't take the video, I didn't post the video and I don't even have a TikTok account.  To be clear, I was just being stupid dancing around, there was nothing that wasn't okay about "my appearance" in the video, but because there were other elements in the post that my school deemed inappropriate, I was included in those that were held accountable.

This new reality has generated a change in my normal personality.  I have become more introverted.  I don't share my opinions as often as I would have in the past.  Sometimes I have a hard time relaxing and just being myself.  How can you relax when you never know if someone is filming you?  I am not on social media much anymore... I just wish everyone else would put their phones down as well.  That is probably too much to expect.