What Are 5 Problems with Social Media?
The world of constantly being connected can be both a stunning and toxic place. I hate to look at the negative side of things, but there are many cons that most of us would not like to admit to. Don’t get me wrong, there are also many positive aspects to social media. However, we as a society are solely failing to recognize the negative impacts it has on our mental health. It’s difficult for me to pinpoint on how I feel about social media. I pretty much grew up without it. Facebook created in 2004, became very popular in my freshmen year of High School. It wasn’t until my senior year that I personally decided to jump on the bandwagon. Instagram was created in 2010, my freshmen year of college and didn’t become popular until my senior year. I cannot imagine reliving my middle school, high school, and college years now, depending on and using this widespread form of communication as a fundamental and acceptable way to create and maintain genuine relationships. Even in my mid-twenties, from time to time, I succumb to all these social media pressures, especially the need to “know”.
1. A False Sense of A Connection
You hear it every day. “Kids and their damn technology. Nobody really talks in person any more.” Unfortunately, this is the sad but honest truth. Being a human being in 2016, you spend more time interacting with technology and less time with face-to-face conversations; fewer phone calls, more texts. More pictures, less living in the moment. We live in a time where the saying, “Pictures or it never happened” is true. Don’t get me wrong, these things are important and sometimes lifesaving (& we all know that I love taking photos). But it’s more important to take that photo or send that text versus living in that moment or talking to that person face-to-face. By doing this, we create these “supposedly” connections. “ We text, we snap, we dm, &, etc.” We feel close because of those interactions. But once those are gone, or the connection isn’t as strong in person, we start to doubt our relationships and friendships. We start to feel we may have a connection, but it’s really more the online connection you have versus the reality of a genuine connection. This is where many people begin to self-isolate because one can not discern between the genuine or false sense of connection that was created.
2. Distracting Ourselves with Social Media Instead of Dealing with Our Own Personal Problems.
As a society, it seems like the only acceptable emotions you can show are happiness and anger. That goes for the “show everything” mentality that is put on social media, e.g., from big accomplishments to heated debates on politics. You rarely see any other feeling in between. You do get the occasional sad post, but ultimately it usually has a happy ending or an inspirational message behind it. While there is nothing wrong with these photos, articles, videos, and status updates, nobody is really taking into consideration all the feelings in-between. As children, we are taught emotions from our family with conversations containing different facial expressions to explain and demonstrate what each emotion looks like. What is interesting is we never go into details about how these emotions “feel”. Many believe it’s because we need to experience these emotions to understand ourselves (which I completely agree with). Is it because we have to figure out how to cope because a lot of these emotions aren’t acceptable to share? In general, focusing on social media, if you were to post something that is not in the realm of “acceptable feelings” you would be shunned upon. This creates a distraction that prevents people from dealing with their personal problems (IMHO). Social Media gives off this persona that if you are not “positive, happy, funny, or inspirational” you are killing the vibe of the Internet. Many people end up questioning their emotions and instead of dealing with these feelings they distract themselves by only promoting the acceptable social media etiquette. It’s frankly sad and unhealthy that this is the norm in society. It’s easier to distract yourself from being happy instead of taking the initiative to deal with your personal issues. Social Media has a huge influence on this. Just remember it’s okay not to be happy all the time. You’re not weak for showing emotions. You’re a stronger person if your able to admit these certain unwanted/ negative emotions and are willing to put the effort into doing something about it.
3. Only Showing Your Highlight Reels.
This one, kind of goes hand-in-hand with Number 2. But when you really think about it, every day you flip through everyone’s Instagram/Facebook seeing photos of friends, vacations, yummy food, a night on the town, funny memes, a beautiful picture with an inspirational caption that fills your feed. You end up looking at others and start envying their lives. I hear all the time, “ Oh my gosh he/she is perfect. He/She lives the life. He/She goes on all these cool adventures. He/She looks so happy with her/him. I would kill to have his or her life. Wouldn’t it be nice.” These are only some of the many things I hear out of both girls’ and guys’ mouths. Everyone, myself included, only posts our highlight reels. We all try to post these happy & perfect images of our lives. And why is that? Honestly, I can’t even answer that question. Maybe because that’s what society has taught or maybe we are tricking ourselves into thinking we are all those images that we post or maybe it is because we are trying to embody this idea of having this “perfect lifestyle” (Will go into further details about this at Number 5). But as humans, we have our bad days. When we have these negative or (according to social media) “unacceptable” emotions/feelings, we tend to navigate towards our fix (social media). So when were not feeling so hot, we just scroll through Facebook and Instagram. We start looking at everyone else being happy. We become envious of those people. We think to ourselves” Why can’t I be happy like him or her? Why can’t I have his or her life?” You start to compare yourself. You start to think the grass is greener on the other side. But what we don’t consider is that again people are only posting their “highs.” Do you think those people, when they are having a bad day are going to post a selfie of them crying laying in their bed? ABOSULETY NOT! Even the thought of someone doing that sounds so ridiculous. But it’s true. NO ONE, I REPEAT NO ONE, is happy all the time! These people who have these so-called “perfect lives” go through just as many hardships as you. They just don’t post or publicize about it. We get into these vicious cycles of comparing ourselves. In the end, we need to take a step back from the situation and realize that those people have problems just like us. Some people are just better at concealing them than others. These people with their “perfect lives” have flaws. Regardless of what persona they try to portray on social media, just remember the grass is not always greener on the other side. And overall, things aren’t always what they seem.
4. Constant Reassurance of Validating Your Lifestyle.
As mentioned above, many of us would not like to admit that we tend to portray our “best” persona on social media. It’s human nature to want to feel accepted and loved by others. However, when you need constant validation on what you’re doing in life, it is then that this becomes extremely unhealthy. As a society, we tend to post things that we think others will like or approve consciously &/or subconsciously. This is especially true for the younger generation, e.g., the amount of likes validating a post. I know multiple people who get anxiety over posting something on social media. Sometimes it even takes them hours to post something until they feel it is perfect. Then if they do not feel they have enough likes, they will delete the photo. It sounds silly but so many people do it. Think about it. Look at the people who inspire you; maybe it is athletes, Youtubers, photographers, bloggers and everything in between. These people have millions of likes on their post each and every day. You think “Wow.” But in reality, not even half or a quarter of those people who “like” their posts truly genuinely care about that individual as a person. Likes, Comments, & Shares do not mean you are respected, loved or changing the world. In the end, those 50-100 people don’t care that you are inspiring the world to travel, having a kid, getting engaged, etc. It just feels good to think that all these people do care. Again, it’s human nature that we get so worked up about having others accept our lifestyles. We tend to forget each individual person has their own unique path. When you are truly genuinely happy with the path you are on, you will not feel/think about having to validate your lifestyle. No matter if you receive zero or 8 million likes if you are happy with yourself it doesn’t matter what others think of you.
5. Having the “ Perfect Lifestyle”
I have mentioned this throughout this post. The “perfect” life/lifestyle. Let's look at the definition of perfect.
Perfect (adjective): having all the required or desirable elements, qualities, or characteristics; as good as it is possible to be.
We live in a generation of having to be perfect. But when you think about it, who is perfect? Some may argue Beyonce is, but she also has issues of her own. Just listen to her album Lemonade. (Trying to be funny but failing) On a more serious note, I have known and experienced people having a great day, and if they didn't let people know what they were doing or captured the “perfect” photo, it ruined their entire experience. With filters and Photoshop, how can we not blame society for making us think everything about us needs to be perfect. But once again being perfect is subjective to each person. But enough about focusing on the physical features of ourselves, let us focus on the “perfect lifestyle”. I am constantly having conversations with family, friends, and strangers about how they wish they were so and so, and it amazes me how we envy these people. We think if we had their lives our stress, worries, and problems would just vanish and melt away if we just traveled and experienced the world. In reality, most of these people that do that, aren't as happy and perfect as they seem. For instance, many of these people have been handed the right cards and had the good fortune to do some of these activities. The camper vans we see people living and traveling the world in on social media are 90% sponsored and supported by a company. There is nothing wrong with that, but we don't see the true “behind the scenes” lives of these people just the lives they show us through social media. We compare ourselves to these people and begin to feel we are not living a fulfilled lifestyle. This causes many people to feel unhappy and dissatisfied with their lives. Don't get me wrong, I believe that traveling is a key component of personal growth, but sometimes people cannot drop everything to do that & THAT'S OKAY TOO! We forget to allow ourselves to really see. By not opening our eyes and getting back to a tenet of truth, i.e., things are not always what they seem, many of us begin to feel badly about our lives. Even if it's about not traveling, maybe it's about getting married or having kids. Again, it's not all that perfect. No lifestyle is perfect. There are always flaws, loopholes, and hardships. Unfortunately, with social media, we don't tend to show those hardships. I am a true believer in hard work and that everything happens for a reason. Stop trying or wishing for this perfect lifestyle. Because the lifestyle you are living is perfect for the unique journey you are on. Remember you are constantly evolving & changing. If you are unhappy with the life you're living now, that does not mean your lifestyle is the wrong one. Be proactive, work hard, put your mental health first, and everything will fall into place!
