Shutterstock

Social networking is no longer about getting back into touch with people we haven’t talked to in years. Instead, it’s become a platform for people to spill and share their life on a 24/7 basis. You see people Facebooking their relationship, Tweeting their work day, and Instagramming their dates. When you’re in a relationship, it’s likely that you feel the need to tell everyone about it. However, there are some positives to keeping your relationship on the down low. Like these:

We increasingly seem NOT to be able to filter through what we see on social networks. Our Facebook events are loaded with graduation parties, weddings and new job celebration dinners. Our Facebook “friends” are uploading photos of their new homes, their exotic summer vacations in Bali, the newest degree to hang on their walls – while we scroll aimlessly through it all and sigh. No matter how right things might be going in our lives, sometimes we let social networking get to even the best of us, and make us long for something more because well, “they” seem like they’re happy and they’ve got it all.

We torture ourselves with social networks and wonder why we’re miserable. Life coach, Christine Hassler of TheDailyLove put it best in referencing speaker, Steven Furtick: We are often looking at “someone else’s highlight reel while we’re knee-deep in our own behind the scenes footage.” What we see is calculated and controlled. And what we feel when we see everyone else’s perfect lives splashed across our timelines should be conditioned to that very fact.

I had a hard time with this when I first came home from completing my MBA. I thought I would immediately find a great salary, apartment, and car and be living the same happy, go-getter, jet-setting lifestyle that quite a few of my friends had been fortunate enough to find directly out of college. I was very wrong.

That wasn’t the course my life took. Regardless of how many rings of employment I threw my WELL-qualified hat into, more often than not I never even heard back once I applied. I fell into depression without even realizing the depths to which I was sinking. I was angry all the time. I refused to leave the house. I sat around in my bathrobe, with a mug of hot chocolate (even during the summer months) watching The Food Network and reruns of A Different World. I scrolled through my Facebook and Twitter timelines aimlessly, watching everyone else live while I felt like I was dying inside. I felt like a failure. Why? Not because I actually was. I had gained two degrees within the course of seven years, gained three years worth of invaluable work experience within a dynamic graduate assistantship, and had gotten over my fear of driving. By any fair standard, I was no failure, but by comparison and low self-esteem I was a complete failure. I had allowed others’ highlight reels via social networks to mash my view of myself into a tiny bit of a thing, thus cementing the fear that I would never get out of this jobless, bathrobed slump.

What was my cure? Getting so busy living my own life instead of vicariously living every controlled moment of someone else’s. It really was that simple. I deactivated my Facebook account quite a few times when I felt that I was getting sucked into the comparison game. I looked at my life – where my strengths, gifts and passions were and decided to make the most of those things. I created my own website geared to the empowerment of young women of color and began to look for women from all walks of life with inspiring stories to tell and interviewed them.

It was the most liberating and life-affirming thing that I had done in quite a while because I was using my gifts, my values, to be a catalyst for inspiration. To help other young women avoid the very things I had previously succumbed to. It mattered very little now what others were doing. I was happy for “them.” But I was truly excited for me.

The times that we are most down on ourselves and envious of others’ lifestyles are when we’re too lazy, too fearful, too overwhelmed to get up and make something of our own lives. And I had been all of the above. What we then admire and envy in others is not their experiences, but their fortitude, their courage, their drive, their freedom to live.

Social networks are great tools when used for what they were originally intended: to catch up with old friends, to network, to market products, to share ideas. It’s when we internalize what we see via these networks that things begin to go left. If we simply choose to live well and fully, there will be no time for comparison because life will unfold into a blessed experience we could never have imagined.

La Truly’s writing is powered by a lifetime of anecdotal proof that awkward can transform to awesome and fear can cast its crown before courage. La seeks to encourage thought, discussion and change among young women through her writing. Check her out on Twitter: @AshleyLaTruly and AboutMe www.about.me/latruly.

We all know that social networking can cause plenty of heated arguments. From disses to rumors and everything in between, it’s not uncommon for someone, even a celebrity, to quit a social networking site, such as Twitter when things get a little too heated — or they forget 18.75 million people are watching their every tweet. Here are 15 celebrities who temporarily or permanently quit Twitter.

Adriana M. Barraza / WENN

Chris Brown

After getting into a heated match with Jenny Johnson about Rihanna a couple of weeks ago, Chris Brown temporarily deleted his Twitter account. Unsurprisingly, he was reactivated and reusing his account the very next day. This isn’t the first or the last time Chris will quit Twitter.

From YourTango

CBS New York’s Jennifer McLogan reported recently that “[t]he hardest desires to resist seem to be social networking sites, not sexual relationships,” adding, “While the urge for sex is stronger, people are more likely to give in to the desire [for] social media.” A University of Chicago study showed that “250 participants identified yearnings to interact through tweets, photos and comments as the most difficult stimulants to turn down. More tempting even, than sex.” Many in the study said: “The Internet is cheaper and more instantaneous than sex and relationships.” Furthermore, the study also showed that “the more the participants tried to resist social media, the higher the craving became.”A good friend and Uiversity of Chicago alum had this to say: “The study is obviously skewed because that school houses more geeks than you care to imagine.” Perhaps so, but the study probably sounds like good news to the parent of a child on the way to college.

Read the rest at YourTango

Thinkstock

After months of intermittent grumbling about app requests, lame status updates and the unwelcome advent of Timeline, I finally broke up with Facebook.

I posted a goodbye message to my friends, said I may or may not return and deactivated my account. Then I proudly announced the breakup on Twitter to a round of internet cheers.

Granted, this separation period is probably more of a break than a break-up, but either way, it’s a much-needed breather for my online social life.

I originally joined Facebook as a MySpace enthusiast who came to the “dark side” only to stalk a crush. Once I accepted that MySpace had turned into a virtual ghost town, I embraced Facebook and found that it was a convenient way to catch up with friends, family and long lost fifth-grade BFFs.

For a while, sometime in between the roll out of the News Feed and the dreaded timeline, sometime before you could “like” every single thing on the site, Facebook was fun. I’d post pictures of weekend excursions, write status updates about weird dates and let friends know about extra tickets I had to whatever concerts I was reviewing that week. I re-connected with people I hadn’t seen or heard from in years and chatted until the wee hours of the morning. I stalked more crushes.

But at some point, Facebook turned into an avalanche of fluff, filler and borderline spam.  Now, most of my “friends” are people I’ve never met or barely know and most of my interactions involve untagging myself in self-promotional notes, blocking apps and games, ignoring wall posts from artists telling me to “click here!” and declining event invites to internet mixtape releases – no, not release parties, just releases.

Even updates from family and actual friends have become increasingly mundane or misleading, as if we’ve run out of ways to be genuinely engaging. Most of the time I’m reading about someone frying eggs or walking up the stairs, or I’m subjected to self-absorbed rants about wild levels of success in every possible aspect of life, only to meet up with these people in person, congratulate them on their achievements and then listen in surprise as they deconstruct the myths and facades they’ve perpetuated on Facebook.

I know I’m guilty of it too, of showing my “friends” something closer to what I want them to see than what actually is. It’s the nature of the site, and social media in and of itself, that we try to recreate ourselves online, filtering out what we deem as undesirable and focusing on appearance at the expense of authenticity.

avtecmedia.com

Most recently, it’s been advised that people keep social networking and their jobs separated from each other. With employers asking for Facebook passwords and employees being fired over Internet posts, many have created a divide between social networking and their job. However, on the flip side, social networking can be quite useful in enhancing and improving your career. Here are 14 ways how!

Photograph courtesy of thegrio.com

Communication, or more specifically, social networking is changing rapidly. That’s no big secret. And since I began using Twitter more frequently last summer, I have decided that valid college courses (perhaps even whole degrees) could be dedicated to the psychology of social networking. It has opened up a whole new dimension to the study of human behavior. Everything is taking place online, from business networking to the forming/ending of friendships to flirting to dating and even to proposing marriage. With so much personal interaction happening from behind a laptop screen, especially where potential friendships/relationships are concerned, the question then becomes, “How do I know that the person on the other end is legit?”

The new age answer? Time and Twitter.

Let me explain. I interact with very few folks who don’t have Twitter or Facebook, the big kahunas of social networking. When forming new relationships, being aware of a person’s “online presence” is an important supplement to our in-person assessments of each other.  I learned the interesting way that lots of young men tweet their true thoughts and feelings while holding up masks to please the ladies they want to impress. I wanted to yell in a Katt Williams-esque screech, “You big dummy! Did you know that I can SEE you?! The real you?!” We, women do it too but I’m not on that right now.

Of course, I have a personal example for y’all: Though this particular guy didn’t use his Twitter account much, he liked enough of my tweets to send me a direct message. Cool. I was testing out my newfound “openness” since my friends swear up and down that I’m too guarded. He led his pursuit with his admiration of my writing skills and my natural hair. Like a moth to a flame I was drawn. A dude who could rock with two of the things I love most? Hail yeah! But having dove in headfirst a time or two before, the 89.7% guardedness that still had a hold on me said to take it slowly. I heeded the warning and pumped the brakes.

For the first few months there was virtually no topic we couldn’t discuss and I can’t lie, I was analyzing his every move to see if this could become something more. He said all the right things. He was a gentleman when we met up for lunch or dinner. He was respectful of my values.  I was swooning to my girls.

He started using Twitter more frequently and watching him get the hang of hashtags and the “@” was cute. Then, he started tweeting more often. For a while it was mostly his self-proclaimed authoritative sports analyses. But then, the other shoe dropped. Out of nowhere came a barrage of tweets outlining how to ‘quickly get the box’ from even the most jaded females. Then tweets about how ‘ugly and/or fat females have no room to be picky’ when it comes to finding a mate and so on and so forth, to the point that I didn’t even recognize him. Looking at his tweets and our conversations, you would think that there were two totally different people present or that he had one heck of a personality disorder. When tweeting/Instagraming/Facebooking with his boys he was vulgar, chauvinistic and downright mean. I understand men don’t speak the same way to their love interest/significant other as they do to their friends – and I’m actually GLAD that they don’t – but THIS bordered on bipolar schizophrenia. Then, one night he decided to “subtweet attack” me (passive aggressively tell me off via Twitter) for not wanting to come out to the city with him. Chile, no. Uh uh. Nope. I set him straight, blocked him and deleted his number with the quickness. I had learned all I needed to learn through my slow-paced six months of “introduction” to him and it was clear that this was NOT a match.

People call it “Twitter stalking.” I call it simply taking myself and my time seriously enough to be aware of a person from all angles – how they are with me, their family, on Facebook, at the club, etc. Just as much as I paid attention to what he said verbally and through body language in person, I paid that same amount of attention to who he was online. I’m not saying one should over-analyze every little deed, but for goodness’ sake, be aware. Social networking has allowed us to freely (and sometimes unknowingly) expose our true selves through a seemingly one-way glass of anonymity. It’s a gift to the genuine but a curse to the fake. Time and careful attention to the details will outlast the smoke and mirrors and give you an all-access pass behind the scenes. So be patient. Be open. Be aware. And get to know someone from all sides. The attention to detail is worth it.

La Truly is a late-blooming Aries with Natural hair and lots to say. Her writing is powered by a lifetime of anecdotal proof that awkward can transform to awesome and fear can cast its crown before courage. Armed with the ability to purposefully poke fun at herself and a passion for young women’s empowerment, La seeks to encourage thought, discussion and positive change. Check out her thoughts/jokes/rants on Twitter: @AshleyLaTruly.  

More on Madame Noire!

• Things That Freak Me Out: Men Who Pretend to Be Perfect
• Reality TV Repeat Offenders: 8 People Who’ve Been On Multiple Reality Shows
• Jasmine Diaz, Founder of the Shawn Mackenzi Agency, On the Business of Matchmaking
• “You’ll Find Love When You Stop Looking” And Other Advice To Ignore
• Cut It Out! The Ridiculous Discussion Surrounding Gabby Douglas’ Hair
• Did You Know They Dated? Part II: 11 MORE Surprising Secret Lovers and Boos We Didn’t Know About
• Where Are They Now: The Men of “I Love New York 1 & 2″

Image: Comstock

If you use the Internet as much as any millennial does, you are probably connected to family and peers using a variety of different social media sites, like Facebook and Twitter. You might not miss anything when it comes to your social network, but if you are not utilizing your social media sites to maximize your job search, you might as well go back to MySpace.

The Internet is a great tool for virtually everything (no pun intended!), from answering a question to finding a recipe, and using it to find your next job is no exception. With popular professional search sites like Career Builder, Monster and Indeed, there is no excuse for not making better use of what the Web has to offer.

If you have an account with at least one of the most popular social networking sites, you’ve made your job search that much better already. These tips will help you use your social networks to your advantage personally and professionally, maximizing your chances of landing your dream job.

essence.com

It’s usually around high school when we begin to learn how rare a true friend is. Good friends are like a bomb pair of designer shoes, the ones that are actually comfortable and are marked down at a ridiculously low price. They’re hard to come by and when you do happen to come across a pair, you cherish them because you are well aware of their value. A good girlfriend can act as the sister you’ve never had, the therapist you can’t afford, and provide the encouragement that you need when the going gets tough. Sadly, many beautiful friendships end for trivial and foolish reasons. I know the saying goes, some people enter your life for a reason, some for a season, and some for a lifetime, but what if you’re allowing a lifetime friend to walk away over something petty? Check out some of the common reasons friendships end below and maybe you’ll decide that it’s time for you and your BFF to kiss and make up.

vibe.com

Social Network Squabbles

The infamous subliminal Facebook statuses and misunderstood tweets have been like a cancer to friendships everywhere since about 2005. I remember watching in amazement last summer as I witnessed the original Twitter “beef” breakout on my timeline between “Basketball Wives” stars and besties Jennifer Williams and Evelyn Lozada. I then began to reflect on my own life and my friends. I could count at least five of them who had fallen out over ridiculous social networking wars that originated over something being said that may or may not have even been about them. Are you really beefing over what you saw someone Tweet?? Come on ladies, think about how foolish you’d feel if you allowed yourself to lose a friend a few years back over Myspace. No one even visits that site anymore!

heartbait.com

Men 

*Sighs* Men are one of the leading causes of ruined friendships between women in America. Seriously though, this is such a common reason that great friendships fall apart. No, I would not suggest making up with a friend who vindictively slept with your man, that’s just trifling. And how could you trust them again? I would, however, suggest that you try to make amends with the friend who may have gotten a little caught up in her new relationship and may be unintentionally neglecting your friendship. I mean, we’ve all been there at one point or another. Express to her how you feel and try to work through it! Then, there’s the scenario where a rift can appear between friends when they realize that they’ve both been eying the same guy. This is not grounds to end a friendship. Two mature women will foresee the disaster which lies ahead and both agree to leave him alone. Sisters before misters, right? Chicks before … um, you get the point.

It’s always fascinating to see relationships come to an end. Although kind of sad, it’s crazy to see a couple proclaiming to the world that they want to spend the rest of their lives together one minute and the next minute they’re calling it quits while proceeding to drag their exes name through the mud on Facebook.

It can be exceptionally difficult when the relationship doesn’t end on amicable terms. No one likes the feeling that comes as a result of being dumped. Men, especially known for their pride and egos, may find it difficult to hear those four words from their significant other: ‘I need a break.’ Because this is real life and no one can technically take an indefinite time out from something as serious as a relationship, everyone usually knows that these four words mean that a break-up is what is really being hinted at.

Although the ending of a relationship is usually nothing pretty, it doesn’t have to end in a screaming match or result in one person getting blasted via social networking. There is such a thing as proper etiquette for exiting a relationship. Besides being considerate of the other person’s feelings, here are 7 ways to bow out of a relationship gracefully.

Soften The Blow

Don’t let the last thing your ex remembers you saying to be,”If only the sex was better” or “Sorry, James is more financially stable.” If you must highlight their shortcomings, let it be the first thing that you mention and end with all of their positive attributes. If you can’t think of anything positive to say, this may be one of those rare instances where lying is okay.