By Coco Shellim

Social Media

I went to the photography annual creative review talk this evening where the question was asked: What are the challenges facing young photographers breaking into the industry? I didn’t expect the answer to be social media. They spoke about the problems of mental health and the fear of needing to always be broadcasting their work – if you’re not posting, you’re not working.

Social media was brought up for a second time during the talk, about a young photographer. He was obsessed with social media, constantly feeling inadequate watching what his friends were doing, his mental health falling apart, yet still addicted. He made the decision to stop/ cut don, not only for his mental health but also for his career security. He was aware that he was constantly posting and didn’t want to be in the public’s eye.

Coupled with the talk this evening, we had a great masterclass today about social media. A shocking fact we were told was, the average person in the UK spends one hour and 54 minutes on social media per day. It was really interesting to learn how to use the different platforms effectively. But something David said about hiring process worried me. He said they rarely look at CVs, instead they will look at the candidates social profiles, I know this is mainly because they are a social media agency, so it makes sense, but still pretty daunting for someone who just isn’t into social media. At all.

I used to love facebook when I was at school, but since then I haven’t really used it. This wasn’t an active decision to stop, I just lost interest in it I suppose. Once you stop it, you quickly become further and further alienated from it, especially as it’s changing so quickly.

My twitter account was only made because we had to have one for SCA, my embarrassing profile has only one tweet: 

@CocoShellim

 21 May 2018 I DIDN’T JUST DOWNLOAD THE TOP SECRET SCA SCHOLARSHIP BRIEF http://bit.ly/2uAlj3J  

Pretty much all my friends are avid social media users, so I definitely get FOMO and am often confused in conversations about a story I haven’t watched or a post haven’t seen. I’m also realising the power of twitter and networking and for that reason think it’s pretty stupid I am not getting involved. But then I see someone taking a selfie of them just to prove to their friends that they went to THAT bar or checked out that exhibition, and then I think it’s all just a load of shit.