I have a 16-year-old sister who is big into Instagram. I don't do Facebook or Instagram or whatever, and the only reason I begrudgingly keep my Twitter account up is for publicity's sake as I hope to land a big publishing deal one day. I don't get to see my sister often since I'm away at school and all but this summer I've had a chance to speak with her about all of this social media use. I have another little sister who is 18 and like my baby sister she is also big into Facebook, Twitter, and a myriad of other social networks.

It's funny seeing this article pop up because this very subject came up not too long ago when I was speaking with both of my sisters about why they are so invested in their social networks and how it makes them feel. They both echoed what this article says--that using Facebook and Instagram is a kind of masochistic way to spend their time. Creeping on exes, sifting through everyone's problems that they purposefully made public, browsing through vacation photos of friends and enemies and 'frenemies'... So I asked them why? Why even participate in it?

The answer was, for them, that all of this drama that happens online is the same exact stuff that would be going on in real life. It's just now, they get to enjoy all of that juicy gossip about which couples are on, who has broken up, whose life sucks, who they're jealous of, who is pregnant, all from the comfort of their own homes at their complete leisure. They both said they felt guilty and stupid that they cared so much about such petty things, but I've never held it against them... They're teenage girls, what could you expect? I guess these social networks and all of the depression and masochism and whatever else that comes with it is a product of our own social norms, not the cause of them.