Technology and social media causes lots of parents and adults to start worrying about our exposure to these sources to portray ourselves outside of real life especially on social media. However, this doesn't always allow people to only benefit from this. The reputation we decide to portray follows us everywhere now and in the future. People will always think in their minds: Are they engaging? Are they hard working? Do they show their true self? Well, this all depends on us starting our own personal reputation people will remember and think of us from. As teenagers we all often use social media these days, we probably all know that no-one is exactly the same in real life as we portray online and on social media. Although this may not be true, there are various ways in which we change our perspectives and ways we decide to show ourselves.

It is a fact that everyone has their own opinions about how we want ourselves to be viewed and how we want to portray ourselves on social media. However in my own personal opinion, I believe that social media  may be an opportunity for us to show different and fake sides to people online instead of people in real life. As a teenager using many apps related to social media and communication with other people, I noticed that many people are very different on social media as they are in real life.

A few weeks ago, I met a friend that I’ve never seen in real life that wanted to communicate with me through this one social media app. Since I didn’t know the similarities and differences of how that person acts in real life and online, I found her very nice and fun to talk to and share personal thoughts with. However, meeting them in real life was very different from what I expected it to be. Not only was she ignoring everyone and was acting very independent, she didn’t bother to hear or listen to the people nearby that wanted to talk to her. Instead she decided to sit on the side alone listening to music which lead to many people giving her unpleasant looks. After this experience, I realized that people are not always the same person they decide to portray on social media or online than they are in real life. This is why I again believe that social media prevents people from being who we really are in real life. 

As shown on the American business magazine, one author claims that “Developing a comprehensive social media strategy will help you manage your online reputation effectively, as well as ensure[ing] you are using the right platforms, engaging with your target audience and monitoring your accounts appropriately” (Forbes Community Voice 1-3). Although I believe there are many solutions to changing our reputation and ways people tend to view us online and on social media, the best ways and strategies are to manage our online reputation by ensuring we're using the right sources, engaging with lots of people and monitoring our own personal accounts appropriately. Adding on to the solutions that can help change our reputation and ways people tend to view us online and on social media, the following information can lead to a success in solving this situation. Being focused and thinking about what people from our followers or friends would like to see and what they have interests in and not only what we'd like to show to people. Being authentic, viewing social media as a marketing platform and just trying to make them have a good impression of us doesn't mean anythings going to change in real life or how they treat us and talk to us. Lastly, being aware of what's going around social media and how people are viewing us should be a reminder and opportunity for ourselves that we should check up and make sure our account doesn't contain anything related to the things people around us don’t value and admire to look at.

Rather than allowing things that negatively impact us by using unrealistic portraying methods on social media, we should rather be focusing our “attention and effort into creating an ideal online personality, using our time and effort to accomplish the goals that may place our real selves with our ideal selves on social media” (Huffington Post 2-4)