Social Networks

I use Facebook every day, but some of the "friends" I see post every day are people that I have not actually talked to in years. However, social media makes you feel like you have not missed anything in their life; you think you know who they are. You see people who are into fitness constantly posting flexing pictures, recipes, and motivational quotes. Is that who they are? Is that their entire life? No, but that's what their Facebook reflects. It makes them seem like they eat, sleep, breath fitness, but in actuality they have a family, a boyfriend/girlfriend, school, and work. The same thing goes for people who only post pictures of drinking/smoking/partying. While that may be something they do often, it is impossible that its their entire life. But yet when I run into friends from high school and we gossip, the things we seen on social media is what we take that person's life to be like. If they post some sad status, we say, "Wow, seems like ______'s life is really sucky, they're always sad" or "All _____ does is party, they're going no where in life." When it comes right down to it though, we have no idea how that person's life is besides what they show on Facebook.  They definitely have a virtual personality that does not always match their real one. They are also very gendered; girls mostly post pictures or song lyrics, while guys post things about the big game and pretty girls. When people go against this, there can be some backlash, but that is constant in almost every social media outlet.