Social Networks are very beneficial when using it for what it’s meant to be used for, you know keeping up with friends, promoting, and networking. The problem is, these days people use social networks as electronic masks; meaning they can hide behind the internet and be something that they are not!  Its kind of like a transfer student or a kid enrolling in his first year in college, you can change your identity without anyone questioning it because nobody knows the old you or should I say the “real you”.

Facebook, and especially twitter, are dream worlds for some people.  It is a place where you can be anything that you want to be.  If your dumb you can appear to be the smartest person in the world, and if your poor, on twitter you can appear to be rich. Most people on social networks put up a big facade, but one thing for sure is a facade will always expose itself sooner or later.  A human is never truly comfortable in being something that they are not, and mentally it can only keep it up for so long.

Social Sites, as well as texting, also limits our education.  We get so used to abbreviating words that we apply the “electronic writing style” to real life.  Whether it is filling out a job application or sending a professional email “we”(I say we because i’m guilty of it to) catch ourselves writing in the electronic writing style which makes us look very uneducated in real life! You become so accustom to speaking through texts, tweets etc. that you feel uncomfortable to speak face to face or you feel uncomfortable presenting yourself because you’re so used to hiding because that MASK!

The Gift of Gab is a special gift, don’t lose it because of the security the electronic world brings! It’s a false sense of security that truly will get you no where if you cant present yourself in person!

Lets Take off the MASK, and start being ourselves! Use social sites, don’t let social sites use YOU!

-Trent Shelton