I hardly read the words as I absentmindedly scroll past numerous posts on my Twitter feed. Through an abyss of smiles and staged laughter, I thumb past a photo of a girl crying and my attention is immediately caught. I am intrigued and before I think twice, I click on the link and begin to read the attached article.

     Essena O’Neill is an Australian nineteen year old who has recently claimed she is quitting social media.

     As of last month, according to O’Neill, she had “57,000+ Instagram followers, 250,500+ followers on Tumblr, 250,000+ subscribers on YouTube, and was averaging 60,000 views on Snapchat.”

     From the age of 16 to 19, O’Neill posted snippets of her life to her social media accounts, which in part, allowed her to make a career as a freelance model. Companies would send her products and pay her to sponsor them in her photos. By doing this, O’Neill says she made $2000 a month from her paid endorsements.

     Since the announcement of departure, O’Neill has deleted her Twitter and Tumblr accounts, as well as a majority of her Instagram posts. The ones she left up, though, have been edited with new captions describing what she calls the “fakeness” in the pictures. The one video that O’Neill still has up on her YouTube channel is the infamous video of her announcing her departure from the Web, titled, “Why I REALLY am quitting social media- The Truth.”

     Throughout the video, O’Neill says that due to social media, she has lost herself.

     As I watch the video, I understand her views, but in my own way, I have to disagree with her claim.

     O’Neill says that social media is the cause of a loss of human interaction, and she says it is also at the root of the cause of major insecurities and mental illnesses, which, to a certain extent, I do agree with. With the constant barrage of the idealistic perfection pushed at us through the use of social media, there is no doubt that it can cause self-loathing.

     However, O’Neill claims that social media takes over one’s life, and that is where I draw my line.

     I, just as almost every other person on the planet, have some sort of social media platform. I

admit, I am probably on Twitter more than the average person should be. O’Neill was not incorrect in saying that social media hinders our ability to talk to others face to face.

     However, letting “social media take over your life” is, in my opinion, a choice.

     It is my choice whether I want to be consumed by the likes and number of followers I have. If I choose to allow these things to take me over, of course I will become as emotionally unstable and lost as O’Neill claims to be.

     But, if you are a person who just doesn’t care about the numbers, then you should be okay. We are able to control what we put out on the Internet for everyone else to see. We are not forced into posting photos or tweets. No one is sitting on our shoulder, threatening us into posting things. It is our choice.

     It is our own choice to be or not to be consumed by social media. For Essena O’ Neill, the lure of social fame became too much to handle. She chose the life of consumption, but that doesn’t mean that everyone else will become consumed as well.

     I believe that what O’Neill had to say in her video did have some very valid points: we are a generation that sometimes seems to lack social interaction skills. We all are in some way or another obsessed with social media. But I believe that the statement O’Neill made about everyone being consumed by the numbers of likes or followers we have is too broad of a statement.

     We are all given choices in life. We choose our own paths. O’Neill made hers out to be one of obsession.

     What will yours be?