I had these recurring thoughts of writing this blog post and always forgot to write it until now. Once in a while I would think back about my middle school days and cringe about how I was the typical annoying 6th grader. As a high schooler, I wish I could have went back and told my past self these pieces of advice. Just watch me blog 4 years later as a college student writing advice to the current me about how silly I was in high school!
1. Stop minding other people's business
When I think back about 6th grade in particular, I am left with mostly negative thoughts about myself. Of course I am proud that I was an active member of this volunteer club, but if I leave that out of the equation then I was indeed an embarrassment in 6th grade. I am not sure if most middle schools are like this, but there was a lot of drama. Most of the time the drama was so and so liked this person. Other times it was X and Y are a ship and A is a player because apparently he has a list of girls he liked. Looking back, I am horrified that current tiny 6th graders that are still children have these cheesy romantic thoughts.
I am not sure why but I was preoccupied with wanting to know about people's crushes and instances where people would exhibit fondness of their crushes. I think the main reason was from social media that amplified everything. Because posts were shared to other people and there was the like and comment function, it became addictive for me to check social media. Some of the posts were related to crushes and I found it amusing to see. Now I find it a complete waste of time. I may have strong opinions, but knowing about what X finds attractive or cute in Y doesn't help me gain any valuable information. All I get from knowing this is extra useless information stuffed in my brain that is empty. As I furiously type this blog entry, I can summarize in one word that my actions were shallow. I am sorry if my negative view makes you feel hurt about your social media use.
After my mom made me delete social media in 6th grade, I noticed that I stopped caring about other people's business. Strangely enough a year later in 7th grade I became detached from caring about the middle school drama, which was the total opposite of my 6th grade self. I told my friend at tennis class a well-known quote that "small minds discuss people." I believe it has some impact on her life because in this farewell card, she mentioned that quote I told her.
Although I have some tendencies to listen to other people's drama, I am more restrained and hold some reservations because I don't think knowing about people's drama makes me have a better impression of them. In fact, it makes me view others more negatively. I think the easiest way to not know about other's lives is to not use social media, which I do.
2. Make free time scheduled time
I think another awful thing I did in middle school was waste so much time on YouTube and social media, which was a big problem in 6th grade. Because I barely had any activities, I would probably spend my weekends going on the computer and wasting time. I regret that I didn't explore my surroundings or do outdoor activities because I would rarely leave my neighborhood in middle school. Although middle school shouldn't be viewed as the same as high school, I would have told myself to start exploring many activities ever since 6th grade, not high school. I was pretty narrow minded that time and restricted myself to a school volunteer club. I didn't even try Mathcounts or robotics club because I thought it was boring. The problem was I didn't even try so how do I know it was not for me?
3. Don't use social media or messaging services
A huge time sucker in 6th grade was social media. Unlike the majority who had no idea what Google Plus, I started using it which was probably the worst decision in my life. This was before I had any idea about the problems that social media causes on people's productivity, mental health, etc. I ended up becoming addicted to social media because I would check every notification, which would cause me to multitask when I did homework. That would partly explain why my 6th grade report card was not as good compared to my 7th grade report card. My social media addiction was so bad that I would probably spend 2 hours a day on the website and hide this problem from my parents. It wasn't until my dad asked me why I switched tabs that my parents forced me to delete the social media account. If I didn't use social media, I would probably spend more time on more meaningful activities like piano or going to the library and read.
For messaging services, I wonder why I had Google hangout chats with 10 of my random classmates that I would barely talk to in person. Like social media, this messaging service made me constantly distracted and seek boredom so it made me harder to do my homework right away. I think the biggest puzzle that I can't really answer is why I bothered chatting with these people that I wasn't even close to. I feel that I was doing it as a distraction instead of having a good, meaningful conversation.
The thought of Google hangouts came up when I decided to go to my archive and read my chat history with these classmates that I didn't message in years. I was horrified that some of my conversations were superficial. All I talked about was why I didn't like this person because he was annoying and then ask people about gossip in middle school. I wonder how much time was wasted by talking about others. Not wanting to be reminded of my old self, I deleted around 10-15 conversations.
Nowadays, I only check my messages at a given time once a day for a defined period of time so there are less of these problems.
1. Stop minding other people's business
When I think back about 6th grade in particular, I am left with mostly negative thoughts about myself. Of course I am proud that I was an active member of this volunteer club, but if I leave that out of the equation then I was indeed an embarrassment in 6th grade. I am not sure if most middle schools are like this, but there was a lot of drama. Most of the time the drama was so and so liked this person. Other times it was X and Y are a ship and A is a player because apparently he has a list of girls he liked. Looking back, I am horrified that current tiny 6th graders that are still children have these cheesy romantic thoughts.
I am not sure why but I was preoccupied with wanting to know about people's crushes and instances where people would exhibit fondness of their crushes. I think the main reason was from social media that amplified everything. Because posts were shared to other people and there was the like and comment function, it became addictive for me to check social media. Some of the posts were related to crushes and I found it amusing to see. Now I find it a complete waste of time. I may have strong opinions, but knowing about what X finds attractive or cute in Y doesn't help me gain any valuable information. All I get from knowing this is extra useless information stuffed in my brain that is empty. As I furiously type this blog entry, I can summarize in one word that my actions were shallow. I am sorry if my negative view makes you feel hurt about your social media use.
After my mom made me delete social media in 6th grade, I noticed that I stopped caring about other people's business. Strangely enough a year later in 7th grade I became detached from caring about the middle school drama, which was the total opposite of my 6th grade self. I told my friend at tennis class a well-known quote that "small minds discuss people." I believe it has some impact on her life because in this farewell card, she mentioned that quote I told her.
Although I have some tendencies to listen to other people's drama, I am more restrained and hold some reservations because I don't think knowing about people's drama makes me have a better impression of them. In fact, it makes me view others more negatively. I think the easiest way to not know about other's lives is to not use social media, which I do.
2. Make free time scheduled time
I think another awful thing I did in middle school was waste so much time on YouTube and social media, which was a big problem in 6th grade. Because I barely had any activities, I would probably spend my weekends going on the computer and wasting time. I regret that I didn't explore my surroundings or do outdoor activities because I would rarely leave my neighborhood in middle school. Although middle school shouldn't be viewed as the same as high school, I would have told myself to start exploring many activities ever since 6th grade, not high school. I was pretty narrow minded that time and restricted myself to a school volunteer club. I didn't even try Mathcounts or robotics club because I thought it was boring. The problem was I didn't even try so how do I know it was not for me?
3. Don't use social media or messaging services
A huge time sucker in 6th grade was social media. Unlike the majority who had no idea what Google Plus, I started using it which was probably the worst decision in my life. This was before I had any idea about the problems that social media causes on people's productivity, mental health, etc. I ended up becoming addicted to social media because I would check every notification, which would cause me to multitask when I did homework. That would partly explain why my 6th grade report card was not as good compared to my 7th grade report card. My social media addiction was so bad that I would probably spend 2 hours a day on the website and hide this problem from my parents. It wasn't until my dad asked me why I switched tabs that my parents forced me to delete the social media account. If I didn't use social media, I would probably spend more time on more meaningful activities like piano or going to the library and read.
For messaging services, I wonder why I had Google hangout chats with 10 of my random classmates that I would barely talk to in person. Like social media, this messaging service made me constantly distracted and seek boredom so it made me harder to do my homework right away. I think the biggest puzzle that I can't really answer is why I bothered chatting with these people that I wasn't even close to. I feel that I was doing it as a distraction instead of having a good, meaningful conversation.
The thought of Google hangouts came up when I decided to go to my archive and read my chat history with these classmates that I didn't message in years. I was horrified that some of my conversations were superficial. All I talked about was why I didn't like this person because he was annoying and then ask people about gossip in middle school. I wonder how much time was wasted by talking about others. Not wanting to be reminded of my old self, I deleted around 10-15 conversations.
Nowadays, I only check my messages at a given time once a day for a defined period of time so there are less of these problems.
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