Hey everyone!

Let me tell you a story:

I created my first Facebook account back in 2013 - when Facebook was still a pretty good thing - It’s so sad to see what this platform became now and what a big hit it was in the 2006 - 2010 era.

But I never achieved anything interesting in there to be honest haha

Okay maybe I made 1k friends by just sending friend requests to complete random people and some girls from middle school that I liked.

Alright shit, let’s just not talk about that 😂

I was also building cities and taking care of animals and farms, whatever… I was just 13 years old.

Hey Amine, thanks for that history class, now let’s go back to 2022.

What do I mean when I say Social Media is not your enemy?

People use social media to stay in touch and interact with friends, family and various communities.

To each their own reason why they are using social media. To spread positivity or to spread negativity and harm. To be active and market their business, close deals or just to consume. To spread awareness about causes they care about. There are so many.

Anyways…

So at the end of the day it’s not social media itself that spreads negativity or positivity. It’s people.

It really is what you make it

Don’t believe everything you’re told about social media and its negatives on your mental health. Some are true but so many other things are lies.

“Social media is dangerous. People in there are dangerous. Spammers, hackers… You might get your bank account hacked, you will get all your money stolen, etc…“

That’s what my own parents have been telling me for years even if they’ve never used any social media platform.

If you give sensitive information to some stranger that you don't know on social media of course there will be some consequences.

Of course social media will affect your mental health negatively if you believe everything that’s being told to you without thinking twice.

Don't waste your time listening to negative comments that are intended to hurt you.

“If people tell me I am stupid, then yeah I am stupid”. Why should I listen to them? Who are they to tell me who I am?

You know yourself better than anybody else.

Don’t let negative people influence you because they are all just stupid, pathetic people that are all below your game level, they have nothing interesting happening in their lives, that's why they want to offend people and generate the buzz. That's what makes them feel good.

Surround yourself with positive people and ignore all the rest

The heart of a friendship is value and positivity exchange.

Being a friend with negative people will only make you feel bad about yourself, underestimate yourself, lose motivation and confidence.

Being surrounded with supportive, nice and cool people would make you feel better about yourself and would make you wanna be more open to speak on social media and express yourself and build more confidence on yourself.

Me personally I can tell you, without a doubt and with all honesty, that the best friends I ever had in my almost 22 years in this Earth are people I met on Twitter.

And I just ignore negative people because I simply don't care about anything they say.

My mental health and self-confidence is so priceless for me.

Personal stories on social media…

I know there are some personal stuff you wanna keep to yourself and wanna keep private from people and that’s fine. Same here.

People love interacting with people. And wanna be friends with people they know, they like and they trust.

Discuss a difficult time in your life, and how you overcame it
We all go through difficult times in our lives. Every single one of us. You will absolutely meet like-minded people who would also share their own stories with you. You can be the source of motivation to somebody else who is struggling…
Talk about a funny moment, that changed the way you think and feel about something
Being a funny person is key. This is something that I personally live by on social media - especially Twitter. It breaks the glass much faster with strangers.
Share something you learned during your career that changed the trajectory of your life
Talk about how learning from the best mentors around you launched your career

If you want my personal advice: go to Twitter. I know you might’ve probably heard about “the platform is dying”, “everybody is moving to Mastodon” or whatever.

But as a Twitter user for more than 10 months, after making almost 15 close friends and having conversations with very insightful people from startup founders to millionaires to writers to students I can tell you that Twitter is the best social network in the world right now.

You just gotta be yourself, join the right community and that’s it. You won’t have to use any filters to look good ;-)

Talk soon,

Amine

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You can find me on LinkedIn too at linkedin.com/in/amineaouragh

Just An Introvert Speaking

Social Media is not your enemy