Social Media
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My first introduction to social media was Myspace. This was the summer of 5th grade heading into 6th grade. Myspace.com/freestylinazn. Freestylin with no g, and the letters azn. My profile picture for the longest was a pair of red and black air force 1 mids. With Myspace, Tom gave users the ability to customize their profiles from the layout, to hiding/showing comments, to having a profile song or even a playlist. Myspace was great because there were many options to tell visitors about you without having to say much, if anything. Your profile was an extension, better yet, an expression of you.
After Myspace came Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram. Social media has evolved into a necessity for much of society. Businesses utilize social media for better customer engagement, which leads to more profit. Celebrities use social media to celebrate and promote themselves. Regular people like you and I use social media to keep up with family and friends or to stay informed. The honest truth is it’s convenient, but when things become convenient, this opens the door up for addictive habits to build. How many times do you check your social media a day? How many times do you think the average social media user checks their social media a day? Do likes and comments make people feel good? If so, why do they make them feel so good?
I believe social media, as popular as it is, can be damaging to society. I’m a firm believer that too much of anything can be bad. Everyone has an opinion, a correct one at that, on Twitter. Everyone is traveling and having the best times of their lives on Instagram. Everyone is their own celebrity on Facebook, advancing in life and making power moves such as getting engaged, buying houses, or having kids.
Everyone is living their best lives on social media. People promote themselves as happy in return for validation that they aren’t. Social media has made it easier than ever for people to victimize themselves.
In the long run I believe the effects of social media will be detrimental to society. As convenient as social media is, the addiction to social media comes with its side effects, too. When people post about their lives, it’s hard not to look back on your own and compare. Damn near everyone on my Facebook has graduated college, gotten married, and is seemingly checking off things off on their bucket list one by one. Just as it becomes habitual to compare, it becomes habitual to feel insecure as well. It comes with the territory, and most times people don’t know they’re addicted until it’s too late.
Social media, if used correctly, can be life-enhancing. It can be a fun thing to participate in. Too much can lead to anxiety, depression, and insecurity. It can be a distraction and it can also be very exhausting. The thing we all need to realize is, most times when people post on social media, it’s who they want us to think they are. From life experience, who they want us to think they are isn’t always who they are, and the lives that they want us to think they’re living, aren’t* always the lives that they’re actually living.
So—in short-- live your life according to what you want to think of yourself, not what the internet makes you feel.