As time goes on, we would often spend our time scrolling on our social media pages and with each passing second would be the internal monologues that plays in our unconscious mind, from thinking about how beautiful, fit, rich, or successful this person is compared to you. Often times, these innocent thoughts can be self deprecating and without realizing it, there is an unintended consequences silently impacts our mental health. I was born on December 19, 2000, as you can imagine, the huge launch of big named social media companies has occurred. From famous sites such as, Windows Messenger, Myspace, Skype, Facebook, Youtube has all blown into full effect. Growing older, you can imagine the exposure I, as well as young generation Z, had to social media, the rises and falls, the dark side and bright side. Our life is social media, we were born into it. What inner altercations would that have on us? In this essay, I will be discussing the most common struggles on social media and how that may impact us.
If you have been on Instagram or even Snapchat, you would know that these social media apps contains reels where you could see your friends, family, or influencers collections of their day, week, or even life compiled into one unit that are called Stories. With these Stories we are able to view how many people has watched them as well as who. In a way, social media has allowed us to experience others personal stories, where then and there we watch their radiant moments. With these Stories, it has become a community where we place our huge flexes, accomplishments, as well as our social events and fanatics. You know yourself more than anyone else, we know our struggles and will do our best to address them but never will we ever post about them. We want people to see our highs instead of our lows and because of this we struggle with our insecurities. We out weigh our “behind-the-scenes” with our peers and social media influencers Highlight Reels then compare it. Although, this was occuring before social media, with popular television shows such as The Jersey Shore and Keeping Up With The Kardashians but with the advancement in technology, it is now happening all the time. A direct link that is perfectly obtainable by the touch and swipe of your fingers. A perfect example would be my very dear friend, Hal Suniga posted a selfie of him with his new clothes and haircut saying, “ *2019 e-boy enters the chat* ” Almost naturally, I had self deprecating thoughts and on instinct I began to think He looks really good… He lost weight and what is my fat ass doing…? Although, here’s the thing, I know him very well. I knew he was going through an extremely difficult time in his life and was losing weight due to the stress of his life but we think, “Who wants to read and see that mess?” When your Stories gain more views, we confront the second struggle on social media.
I’ll use myself for an example- since I am someone who was born into the generation of the social media era, I’ll admit that I have tried to appeal myself in order to gain approval, attention, relevancy, views, and of course ‘likes’. By doing this, I had to make sure that I take 100 photos then carefully analyzing them to make sure the lighting the perfect, the angle is right- so no one could ever detect my double chin or see my chubby face. Once I find the perfect set of photos, I have to choose a filter of course! Something that isn’t too flashy and disrupts the overall theme of my account. Lastly, I’ll have to wait for the perfect time to post- not during the night time because everyone’s asleep and not too early because people may be busy getting their day started. As you can guess, I am obsessed with this routine. You’d be surprised that others- especially those my age are as well. Without noticing we have formed some sort of social biological clock. It’s an obsession that may lead problems. We all know of someone that took down a photo because it didn’t take as many likes in the amount of time as we wanted it to be. Per say, 100 likes in 20 minutes. To get more likes and more views on our posts we must appeal to our audience- our followers. Unfortunately by doing this, we unconsciously in a way, change our identity. In current age of social media, we are the product and by doing this we are letting others give value to us. We standardize our self-worth due to the approval and attention of others without even realizing it.
On a complete opposite end of the spectrum, there would be unfortunate occurrences of online harassment. It is an important topic to discuss and to shine light on these instances in order to prevent online harassment. These type of situations are extremely scary and can be heavily damaging to a person. But sadly, this situation only gets worse if you are a woman, a member of the LGBTQ community, and a person of color. The some complications about our news stories that we read today would be situations such as, Tyler Clementi, the 18 year old young man, who committed suicide due to his roommate filming him kissing another guy in secrecy and being outed about it on Twitter. Or seeing women like, Anita Sarkeesian to being shamed by the internet and receiving death and rape threats for sharing their feminist thoughts. Finding everyday tweets and Snapchat videos of people being extremely racist. Unfortunately, we read about these stories once it’s too late. When these little moments occur over time, then it becomes a big problem. Recognizing these everyday instances will slowly but surely lead to solutions to these problems. Such as congresswoman, Jackie Spieier, introducing the Intimate Privacy Protection Act, which makes it illegal to capture a video or photo of a person engaging in sexual conduct without consent and even the, Online Safety Modernization Act of 2017, which rules out online harassing and provides funding to law enforcement and the FBI to deal with cyber crimes.
Although, here is the thing, I understand that it may sound like I’m bashing on social media but in actuality, I actually enjoy it- on some occasions. Social media has helped me in more ways that one can possibly imagine. Social media has helped me deal with my personal issues and occurrences that goes on in my life, especially Youtube. I was 16 years old when my parents relationship were on hanging on a dying thread, I would often play certain Youtube videos to help me drown out the sound of their voices. When I was trying to figure out my sexuality, Youtubers like Alexis and Lilian, Sydney and Becca, Shane Dawson, Ryland Adams, would show me that being LGBT- more specially lesbian- is okay and that I’m not alone. Watching their vlogs and sit down/talk videos would educate me more about the LGBT community as well as being more comfortable and open about my sexuality. Youtubers like, Rashid, Laura Lacquer, TheStriveToFit, TheNurseNook, and Kaur Beauty, would give me more exposure towards the medical field and more specifically nursing. Watching their Youtube videos has given me not only motivation but inspiration to keep pushing through with school because eventually, hard work pays off and slowly but surely, I’ll reach my goals. Many more social media influencers has helped me shaped into the person I am today and I give them thanks because they have contributed and helped me in life more than words can explain.
Not only that but social media has transformed the way society receives information, as well as communicating amongst each other. With this, big news outlets, politicians as well as celebrities, utilized social media in order to send out mass messages in a quicker and more simple action. On Twitter, we are able to see what exactly is going on in our world in a simple quick of a button as well as reading the reactions of others. Also, With websites such as Discord, we are able to form friendships with a person from one end of the world as well as getting know someone around the area. Social media has paved the way for folks who are able to get fame. Also, people from around the world are able to donate with the a simple click of a link. With websites such as, GoFundMe- which is a platform that allows others to raise money for certain occasions- we are able to crowdfund from around the world in order to help those who are in need. Although, with the upsides of social medias, it also has it downsides.
The same aspects of social media which makes it a positive being in our lives could also have it’s negatives. For instance, I know for a fact that I can feel drained whenever I scroll through any of my social media feeds. There’s a lot of…stupid things on the internet and you can get used to for such a short amount of time. On Instagram, it’s tiring to see people portray a facade. On Snapchat, it can get extremely draining to look at people Stories for example, people will have the audacity to post rants, high school fights, or lip synching to random songs. Twitter is pretty annoying because there’s a lot of different people you would encounter. From unpopular opinions that no one asked for, to just bashing someone for no reason, and reading recycled tweets.. On Youtube, you’ll have embarrassing youtubers such as Jake or Logan Paul who can get obnoxious to watch.
Although, as mentioned before, social media can be dangerous. For instance, cyberbullying makes it extremely easy, especially for young teenagers, whom in this time in their life makes very impulsive and foolish decisions during that age. Stalking may also become an issue, due to the openness of our profiles and posts, our everyday actions can easily be watched. Social media can lead to negative social interaction. Because me and my generation was raised on the internet, it can be easily concerning to encounter a young group of friends sitting together and being focused on their smartphone, instead of having face-to-face interaction. We can be glued to our phones and the apps that live within it, that we often miss the beauty of the life that’s right in front of us. The older generation can easily experience a life before the internet, social media, and electronic devices. Although, when we speak about this dark side of social media, perhaps, what we really mean is the people. This is the dark side that plays a huge role in insecurity but it that makes you take down a photo you were happy to share or comparing other peoples relationships and wonder why the connection you make with them are not the same.
All in all, it’s important that as a society and common human beings that these type of topics are discussed in order to lessen the problem and to ensure a better and healthier future for our current generation and the ones after us. Once we are able to exceed in recognizing these effects, we are to provide ourselves with more strategies so that once you have your low days, you’re not questioning your self-worth. Bailey Parnell once said, “The same way we monitor what goes into our mouth, monitor whatever goes into your head and heart.” saying that by doing this it’s important that we limit our social media usages. The last thing we need to do is make a habit out of positive behavior. Respect others and treat them how they deserve- online and offline. Social media can either be a good or a bad thing. It can dictate us if you let it.
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