The Social Media Effect

As social media becomes a bigger and bigger part of our lives and a medium for consuming things like news and entertainment, I believe it is important to take a step back and really look at what we are consuming and the effects it has on us as a whole and as individuals. If you were born in the early 2000’s like me, chances are social media has kind of consumed your life, which is not automatically a bad thing, but because it’s still so new we have to be careful and do what we can to be informed about what we’re doing and how it circulates into our everyday lives and feelings. The following are just some points and questions I’ve been gathering for the past few months–this is simply meant to serve as things for you to think and discuss as we reach a new age of social media and the internet; none of this is pure fact and not meant to be the only way of looking at this. 

It’s not your job to be a personal brand. Social media and the influencer lifestyle have us convinced that our online presence has to be some kind of personal brand–a huge, sophisticated thing. Social media can be a personal brand if that’s what you want, but that’s not what everyone wants and that is ok. The idea of being a personal brand online brings out this concept of the ‘digital’ you vs the ‘real’ you, and which one is better. Is there a difference between the two versions of you being presented to the world? Should there be a difference? 

People are not on social media to give you exactly what you want. People who make their jobs on the internet are treated so awfully, and maybe they did it to themselves to an extent. However, they are not there to be this perfect person and tell you how to have a perfect life. They do not exist to only please; they are creating content and making a living and if you don’t like what they are doing or it’s no longer your style, then just stop. You don’t have to watch or support them, and it is certainly not their job to make you stay. They are doing what they want to find people that enjoy and support them, and if you don’t fall under that category, then just leave. They don’t owe you anything and you don’t owe them anything. They do not exist and create to please you. 

Social media has made balance basically impossible. If someone only posts about the good things in life they’re fake and not being true to their followers, and promoting a bad image of life and expectations. People are allowed to only want to talk about and post the good things in life, it’s not their job to tell you life isn’t perfect. On the flip side, if they post all the behind the scene things and the ugly parts, they get told they’re either doing it for attention or everyone who follows them suddenly feels entitled to their private lives and information. There is no more privacy on the internet because everyone feels obligated to every bit of information about everyone. We as the consumers are so caught up in the glamour of the “influencer lifestyle” and wanting to be cool and kept in the ever-changing and moving loop that we just create a bunch of things we don’t need. We feel pressured to create social media and to have a constant online presence and create finstas and be 100% transparent about our lives all for validation. 

Why do we use social media? Is it serving a purpose in your life? If social media doesn’t have a purpose in your individual life then you don’t need it. If you have it just to have it then you’re just harming yourself. We feel obligated to have social media and outcast those who don’t. Not on purpose, but through things such as meme culture, Stan twitter, and cancel/celebrity culture. You can have social media just to be social and keep up with the news or your favorite artist if it is still serving a purpose, but if you have it just to scroll through mindlessly or just because everyone else does, then it has no purpose anymore. If you don’t have a purpose for something in your life then why do you have it? If you no longer fit your clothes or you aren’t happy with your hair you either get rid of it or fix it. We use this approach with material objects, but for whatever reason refuse to carry this same thought process to the way in which we consume media. If it doesn’t serve a purpose to you then you don’t need it. Don’t feel like you have to have something just to keep up with the vastly polarized consumer culture. 

The twenty-four-hour news cycle/trending. We are so used to a constant influx of information that our attention spans are falling rapidly. We are always keeping up with the drama, hype and just stuff from all over the world that most people find minimal things boring and meaningless and lose interest so much faster. We see so much information that now “trending is the only way we will actually comprehend a single thing.” The amount of content that we consume on a daily basis is outrageous but because it’s all on social media none of us really stop to think about how this affects our minds and our health. If we are never fully processing anything because it’s all happening too fast how, is that good for us? This whole concept of always consuming has us convinced that we always need to know everything, but we don’t. We need to be aware of what we are consuming and how that affects our society and us as individuals.