pros and cons of having an online presence
Tags: opinion, student, devjournal
Published: 2021-07-13 12:41:29



Hello world, and welcome to my little corner of the internet. This corner is quite small and I have been meaning to grow it for some time but I keep putting it off for many reasons. Reasons that I will be discussing in this post. 

## Why I have a small internet footprint ❌

#### 1. Cancel culture

The largest reason why I get discouraged from creating content on public platforms is that I will experience criticism, judgement, or even worse, "be cancelled". Honestly, I don't care what  **everyone** thinks but there are people that I might meet in future who will discover this little corner and change their perception of me based on these posts. As much as this could be a good thing, it could just as well be a bad thing.

### 2. Fear of future rejection

We're told from a young age, that we should be careful what we put on social media. There is a saying that goes something along the lines of *"The internet never forgets"* . I would add "*and is very unforgiving" .* 

At this point, just about everyone has heard stories about someone who was rejected because of some inappropriate post that didn't resonate well with the company values that they applied to work for and were not considered for a position.

### 3.  It's hard to create good content

This is probably the biggest reason that gets in my head because I am somewhat of a perfectionist. I know everybody has to start somewhere but I have always looked at my work and never really thought it good enough for someone else to consider it valuable. 

All the creators I follow on every platform usually create content that I enjoy consuming because I find it **interesting**. Not many people find the work that I study, and plan to write about, very impressive. Never mind, lack of engagement being a discouraging factor.

Perhaps, I can improve the quality of my work overtime but getting others to indulge in my content is out of my control. There is only so much I can do to get people to read my blog. 

## Reasons I should have an online presence ✅

There about a billion other reasons why I am afraid of putting myself out there. The longer I make that list the more I will be reluctant to do it. So instead I'm shifting the focus to think about the positives that come with having an online presence.

### 1. Helping someone else

You may say "Wait? How does helping someone else benefit me?". Well, it puts me at ease.

Knowing that my content could help a younger version of myself take strides towards their goals gives me more motivation to continue this life thing ya know. 

If it weren't for the YouTubers that I subscribed to I would be an entirely different person. So this idea that the words I type may positively impact someone's life is fulfilling. It's the small things...

I never thought my content could help someone else until I stumbled upon a random YouTube video about why you should have an. I came to the realisation that you don't need to be a guru to help someone, you can simply be a guide. Everyone has life experiences that others would find valuable. I may not be able to tell someone exactly how to achieve their goals but I could definitely tell them how NOT to go about it. They can learn from my blunders and boy there are many. I don't have to be an expert to help someone learn a topic but I can guide them on how to go about learning it. 

### 2. Opportunities

As much as online content opens up the possibility of being publicly criticised it also leads to the possibility of being praised for your work. Once you create an account on an online platform, it serves as a means for others to connect with you. This connection may lead to opportunities that you otherwise would not have had if you never "existed" on that platform. 

Let's consider two random people that live in a village. The first person travels between villages, meets new people and goes on adventures on a weekly basis. And the other villager never sets foot outside of their village. Who do you think will find more opportunities? 

With this in mind, would you rather have future employers find your internet footprint on their own or would you rather show them where to start looking? If you care about first impressions, it only makes sense to showcase your best work first and hopefully it will be enough to sway the odds in your favour.

### 3. Foster learning

A successful page, channel, website or whatever platform used to create content takes a lot of time to maintain and grow. In this process of maintaining your online presence, you will learn valuable skills. Think about it,  the more often you write blogs the better writer you will become. The more YouTube videos you publish, the better you get at creating content and editing videos. The photographs you take, the more you paint, the more you draw, the more you do just about anything, the better you will become at doing that particular thing.  

## Wrapping up

All factors considered, I believe the pros outweigh the cons when it comes to having an online presence. It starting to feel like a no-brainer at this point.  

Up until this point, most of my blogs. I have tried to take the personality out of the posts. Not quite sure why, but maybe one reason is that I was afraid that people wouldn't enjoy the personality in the posts. But now I'm okay with that cause it means the people who revisit this little corner of the internet, prefer my style. So, from now on, I'm going to try and give the quality and flavour that I put on anything with my name on it.

If you got this far it means that this blog was worth writing. So, as always, thanks for the read, and Happy coding! 💻