On Portrayal, Perception, Reality, and Social Media

“Expose him.”

I read these words over and over again in my daughters' texts and Instagram messages as I dug through her phone a few nights ago.

She’s a teenager—brand new to the online world. She made her first big mistake on social media last weekend and I needed to get to the bottom of it to decide how to move forward.

It led to a conversation that some adults don’t even understand, and not enough parents are having with their kids.

You see, she got caught up in a situation that wasn’t all her fault. In fact, it seemed like typical 13-year-old stuff to start.

But as she told her friends about the situation, they encouraged her to take her story public (“expose him”).

So she did.

But her portrayal, the resulting perception, and the reality of the situation didn’t exactly align.

It’s actually really easy for this to happen on social media. Conveniently leaving out a detail or two can spin up a whole different story… and the publisher is responsible for the message that he or she delivers.

Here is what we discussed:

How you portray a situation is your responsibility.

My daughter shared portions of a conversation on her Instagram story (most adults know this never a good idea; peer pressure and being brand new to social media created the perfect storm). It made the other person in the conversation look really bad.

The other kid wasn’t innocent by any means. But neither was she. And how she portrayed the situation made the story untrue.

We as adults do this all the time. We show the result of the hard work but don’t tell the story of how we got there. We show the things we have and don’t show the debt we went into to get them (hopefully this isn’t the case but I know plenty of people that spend every dollar they earn—and then some). We show the highs, not the lows. We only tell part of the story.

Especially on social media, we show the highlight reel and almost none of the challenges that we encountered to get there.

How people perceive your message on social media is also your responsibility.

I fully believe that you are responsible for the way you make people feel. Responsible for what happens as a result of the message you put out. Responsible for both the people you inspire and the people you hurt.

My daughter didn’t think her classmates' perception was her problem, but I challenged her to look at it in a different way. To take ownership of her presence and her message, and apologize for the “drama” that resulted from what she put on social media.

I want her to be bigger than that. We should all want to be bigger than that.

Communicating clearly and anticipating the reaction to our message is the responsibility of those of us that have a presence and any kind of influence online.

I compared my daughter’s stories, what actually happened, and how she showed the situation on social media, and portrayal, perception, and reality didn’t align.

I’m not sure that her developing teenage mind understood the depth of this conversation, but I’m going to keep on having it with her until she gets it.

My daughter just got IG a few weeks ago and I ultimately decided to remove it from her phone for now. I was very hesitant about her being ready in the first place. I need to know that she understands how to appropriately use social media and be pretty darn sure this will never happen again before she gets it back.

I wish she could grow up without it.

Parents, how do you talk about social media with your kids?

How do you make sure your portrayal, the resulting perception, and reality align?

I’d love to hear your thoughts below.