Selfies offer more than face value

I posted pictures of food and fish on my Instagram yesterday.I later thought, food? Really? Was I that guy? Did anyone really care that I was eating a pan-sized cookie with ice cream?I spent spring break in California roaming around Manteca, the town I called home for a decade, so I am assuming the feedback in the form of "likes" was more a product of sharing a life moment than the actual cookie. After all, a 30-inch steelhead is much more "like"-able than dessert.I led a discussion in my former journalism class about online identity and how a personal filter or standards change over time. After being a high school teacher in California, I saw that to be without social media is to miss out on at least a portion of the teenage social experience. That's not to say that it's a requirement of being a teenager, but like it or not, it's a part of contemporary society.What I gleaned from the candid discussion was what I expected. Social media can be used for good and evil, and though the evil should be avoided, it is interesting and still shared.See full column at:http://www.capitalcityweekly.com/stories/032614/out_1199944146.shtml