Q: Write a short story about how a teenager goes missing a few months after joining a social networking site. (Wait... what? Okay that's just stupid... let me modify it...)
Q: Write a short story about how a teenager becomes heavily addicted to a social networking site and how it affects his/her life.
(Much better, on to the blog prompt...)
She grabbed the laptop and dashed into the room, swiftly closing the door behind her. She jumped onto the queen-sized bed and switched the device on. She fingered with her hair impatiently as she waited for it to load. It may have just took a minute or two, but to her it seemed like ages. When it finally did, she quickly clicked the iconic blue 'e' at the corner of ther monitor, went to the "Favourites" tab and scrolled down to the bottom.
Click.
Her eyes lit up as the familiar home page of her favourite social networking site loaded. She logged in immediately. A box suddenly sprung up at the bottom of the page. "You have t#wenty-two new friend requests!" it read. She added all of them without any further considerations. It did not bother her that they were all complete strangers. All she cared about was to expand her ever-growing list of "friends".
Click.
She went to her profile page next. Before doing anything else, she gazed at the monitor dreamily and admired it, a representation of her hard work. All those months of building up an online persona paid off. It constantly attracted new friends, new opportunities to meet new people. It did not bother her that her profile listed that her favourite food was sushi (she detested it, but it was one of the foods that had the most fans) or that it stated that she was a number one fan of Jimmy Eats World (she had never listened to any of their songs, but it allowed her to gain 243 new friends in the short span of three days). She did not care that her display picture was the image of a model who she had found using Google or that her profile displayed her age as 19, a whole five years away from her current age. All that mattered was that it could allow her to gain more friends.
Click.
She went to her friends page next. A list of hundreds of people who came from different nations and backgrounds. She couldn't help but chuckle. Only a few months ago she was a nobody. She was part of the unpopular clique at school. Her group of friends consisted of misfits, klutzes and weirdos. They were close though. She smiled at the memory of sharing her food with her friends every recess. But that was different now. She spent her recesses at the computer lab now. She grew distant, grew apart from them. But it did not matter. She had so many friends now. Sacrifices had to be made.
Click.
And of course, her grades suffered from spending too much time on the computer. Once she was a straight-A student, now her report card was made up of C's and D's. But that did not matter either. Sacrifices had to be made.
Click.
She grew distant from her family too. Refused to attend family outings, gave homework as an excuse.
Click.
And sometimes, she didn't even eat, didn't even bathe. Her top priority was building up her online persona.
Click.
And on some days, when she looked at the mirror, she would stare at her reflection disbelievingly, not recognising herself. She would look tired, worn out, deprived of any energy, from hours of staring at the computer screen and the lack of sleep, a far cry from the bouncy and goofy person she once used to be.
Click.
But that did not matter either. After all, sacrifices had to be made.
Click. Click. Click.
