What Sophie Said

Last week, I spoke to Felicity at BBC Newsbeat on the topic of mental health and social media. Her post (which is fantastic and can be read HERE ) got me thinking on the topic and my story a little more. The article summarised my own experience: when I first started to see the symptoms of my anxiety when I was at university, I had no idea what it was. It was through reading blogs and reading what people were saying on social media what I learned more about it, got the courage to see my GP, and learned it was ok to talk to my friends and family about it. I learned it was ok to talk, and ok to need some help. Since speaking to Felicity, this idea has been stuck in my head so I thought I’d write a bit of a follow-up on exactly how social media helped me. As I said, it was at university that my anxiety began to take on a big role in my life, and began to have a big effect. It was also during university that I completely fell for the world of blogging and social media. I was qu...

I’ve ‘almost’ written this post so many times. As a fact in itself, this makes me sad. Each time I’m prompted to write it, I take a step back, and just note it down. Because I don’t want to make it clear each time exactly what I’m reacting to. The particular discussion/topic doesn’t actually matter. What matters are people’s reactions to it. On the one hand, the blogging/social media world is a tight-knit community. People make great friendships. People share great content. People applaud one another’s successes. But every now and then – and unfortunately it’s fairly consistent – there’s drama. This is to be expected to an extent. After all, no one is happy all of the time, and arguments and disagreements happen. The majority of the time, people are mature enough to accept that it’s ok to have different opinions. Sometimes, these opinions are harmful or upsetting to one or multiple people. Sometimes, it’s impossible not to respond. The probl...

The return of the blog means the return of my monthly challenges, as they were great motivation last time. Having just returned to this little corner of the internet, I thought I’d get September off to a strong start, and blog every day for the month. I’ve seen lots of my favourite bloggers do similar things over recent months and years, and I think it’s a great way to challenge myself and get back into the swing of things. It will also hopefully help to guide me in the direction I want my blog to be heading in. The creation of lots of different posts will reveal the things that are on my mind and that I feel most comfortable writing about. So there we have it. Day one: DONE. Only 29 to go…

A couple of years ago, I deleted a LOT of people from Facebook. Well, I ‘unfriended’ them. When you first get Facebook, which for me was at school, it becomes all about how many ‘friends’ you have, and about immediately connecting with everyone you meet. Then you start university, and that game starts all over again. The problem is, the majority of those people you just don’t care about. It’s not that I wish ill on any of them, but I just don’t need to know every detail of their lives. The new rule is, if I wouldn’t stop for a chat in the street, or drop them a message to catch up, I don’t need to be a Facebook friend. I think that became even more clear for me when I got into Twitter. Twitter is more about connecting publicly with a wide range of people, who share your interests. In contrast, I see Facebook as much more private, a space to share photos and messages with ‘real life’ friends. I’m not too strict, and there are people in my ‘friend’ list that I’ve not caught up with ...