This is Maggie Bowen reporting for the Triton Voice. Today we are going to find out if selected Triton students believe they are the same person on social media as they are in real life.

First I’ll be interviewing Connor Kohan, a junior at Triton. Kohan said he believes he is the same person on social media as he is in real life.

On his phone, Kohan has Instagram, Snapchat, twitter, and Facebook downloaded, but uses Instagram most frequently to “look at meme’s”. Although Kohan claims to just be looking at memes on Instagram,he has 987 followers.

Kohan believes that the biggest problem on social media is people posting whatever they want without thinking of the consequences and repercussions before hand.  

I asked if he believes social media affects who you are, and his response was, “ yeah honestly it holds you to a social standard that nobody really needs to be held to”, then proceeded to say, “You need to worry about you and not what other people think about you.”

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Kiefer Callewaert, also a junior at Triton, said he believes he is the same person on social media as he is in real life. “I use Instagram and Snapchat. Instagram probably the most frequent.”

Callewaert said he has roughly 350 followers on Instagram. When asked if he thought social media affected who you are, he said “ I think social media affects who you are if you’re uncomfortable with who you are in the first place, which I think is a major problem.”

He elaborated and said, “ a lot of people aren’t comfortable with who they are because of what other people say about them, and what other people think about them. Then those implications start to get to you and then you start using social media and you want to be someone that everyone likes.”

Callewaert said he thought the biggest problem on social media is, “everything is saved to the cloud so then the government brings up everything you’ve ever done on social media. So if you’ve ever messed up, they can bring it up in a job interview and you’re totally screwed.”

I also spoke to Meaghan Riccio who gave us her feelings about this matter, Riccio is a sophomore at Triton. Riccio believes she is the same person on social media as she is in real life. Instagram, Snapchat,and VSCO are social media apps downloaded on her phone, but uses Instagram most frequently. Riccio has 2,619 Followers on Instagram.

When asked if she believes social media affects who you are, Riccio’s response was “Yeah, I feel like I look around on social media with all the Instagram models and i want to be like them.”

In Riccio’s opinion, the biggest problem on social media is, girls wanting or feeling obligated to look like Instagram models.

Kayla Perley, a junior at Triton also gave her opinion on this matter. When Perley was asked if she believes she is the same person on social media as she is in real life, her response was, “No, because I feel like I try to make my life more likeable and interesting online then I do in person because I feel like a lot of people will judge you if you post weird things and I like having a lot of likes.”

Instagram, Snapchat, and VSCO are all apps used by Perley, but she uses Instagram most frequently to see what people are doing in their life. She has 764 followers on Instagram.

I then asked Perley if she believes social media affects who you are, and her response was, “Yes, I think it stresses me out because I try to live up to other people’s expectations of what they think my life should look like.”

For Perley, the biggest problem on social media is cyber bullying.

Social media is the advanced communication system of the world today. Whether you’re receiving news, likes, or text messages from someone social media is being used. Think about the impact it has on your life and how much you rely on social media throughout the day, are you the same person?