March 9th, 2018
By Jason Parr
While social media was originally intended to be a way to keep in touch with others, overtime it has grown out of control and consumed my generation. After posting a photo, people check the amount of likes and comments to make sure it’s enough to seem popular. People go to events just to take pictures to post. People use social media to bully one another behind screens. People compare themselves to others based on posed and edited photos. It all seems so fake, and yet I still use it. Truthfully I feel obligated to use social media, even though it makes me feel worse about myself in the long run. I feel like I need to be able to connect with others online so I don’t miss something important. After talking with some friends, I have realized that a lot of people have a similar perception of social media on their lives:
Snapchat
If I had to pick I would consider this my favorite form of social media. It’s nice to be able to see someone’s face if they live far away, or to send funny pictures with different filters. There are, however, huge downsides. With the ability to post stories, you can see what other friends are doing constantly, which can make you feel really left out. And sometimes too much contact with someone is a bad thing, because you really just don’t care what your distant friend from high school is having for dinner.
Instagram definitely makes me feel the worst about myself. People post pictures of them looking tan and happy, and you wonder why you aren’t living life like them. Many times I have looked at someone’s Instagram account and felt jealous, only to find out that they just dropped out of school or broke up with their significant other. It is not a realistic representation of one’s life and I have to say I am also guilty of making my life seem better than it might be.
Twitter has been mostly positive for me, but primarily because I am pretty quiet on Twitter. I like to follow funny accounts or news accounts. I definitely see a lot of harm on twitter as people get into “twitter fights” that probably wouldn’t happen face to face. People also “subtweet” others, which is calling someone out without specifically saying their name. It is unfortunately a lot of
My Facebook feed mostly consists of my mom’s friends, but I definitely still see a lot of negative statuses and comments. It really brings you down when every post is about politics or bad things happening in the world. Facebook seems like the place to go if you want to voice your opinions publicly to start an argument.
I don’t mean to say that all social media is 100% bad. I don’t think that at all. What I do think is that it’s important to remain level headed when checking social media and to limit your time on it if you find yourself feeling down. With the countless options for social media and the ability to follow and follow people at your fingertips, it is possible to filter content so that you only see things that make you feel good about yourself. This is something that I am slowly doing to better my experiences with it.
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