Part 1: Problems Caused by Social Media

Problem 1: Mental Health Issues

If you are active on social media, it is extremely likely that you are surrounding yourself with people who are “putting on an act” to appear more positive, interesting, and exciting. You may even be trying to mimic their efforts in order to boost your own image. In fact, pretty much everyone on social media does this to a certain extent by hiding all of their negativity and baggage behind closed doors (naturally, of course, because no one wants to be burdened by others’ problems). Though, some of us who are guilty of this actually believe that everyone else’s lives are actually more interesting and exciting and stress-free than our own, just because we do not see their negativity or baggage.

Why? Well… firsthand, we experience family emergencies, debt, stress, harassment, disapproval, and countless other real-world problems every single day. Since no one on social media openly brags about having such issues, we simply assume that such issues do not plague them the same way they plague us. As a result, we convince ourselves that our lives “suck” (sounds a bit harsh, but it is true for some people), even though our friends and role models, despite not sharing any of it, experience many of the exact same issues we do.

Sooner rather than later, we need to remind ourselves that social media is not at all representative of the real world. “Perfect lives” do not exist. Everyone has baggage that we will rarely (if ever) see shared on social media. If we can understand this, we can avoid feeling isolated…and then prevent ourselves from unnecessarily spiraling into a life of depression and anxiety.

Furthermore, we must also stop comparing our lives to those of other people. Our immediate instinct upon seeing an image of someone is to compare and contrast their lives (facial features, body type, clothing, and talent) to our own, but the success of others has no bearing whatsoever on our own lives. While it is healthy to have a role model whom we strive to be like, we need to learn to accept our own lives first. Jealousy is not going to make us look muscular/slim or earn us a big house with a swimming pool or take us on a dream vacation. As such, jealousy should not initiate our goal to look or act a certain way. There are many paths that we can take to achieve our goals, but the ones of success do not strive on jealousy.

Problem 2: Harassment-Induced Lowered Self-Esteem

In recent years, billions of people have armed themselves with a new class of weaponry: smartphones. With these millimeter-thick sheets of glass, we are free to write negatively about any person or organization in the world, knowing that, without facing any consequences whatsoever, we can destroy someone’s virtual self-esteem at the risk of inadvertently destroying their real feelings.

Harassment creates an extremely unfriendly environment for all users of social media. It inclines us to expect the worst from people and be hostile toward them. Instead of engaging in conversation and debate, we either become really offensive/defensive/antisocial at first impression, or we simply refrain from sharing our perspective altogether; but it is wrong to fear expressing ourselves on social media because (obviously) not everyone on social media is hateful. In fact, the majority of us are friendly and want to share our opinions, but it is important to note that there are still enough hateful people on these platforms who cause us to withhold our trust. As the saying goes, “One bad apple spoils the whole bunch.”

To those bad apples, I emphasize how important it is to keep in mind that genuine social media users are not some virtual, emotionless, abstract robots. They are human beings with real minds and real hearts, both of which are vulnerable and susceptible to deep feelings of happiness, sadness, and anger. Words can (and often do) “cut deep,” so we must use caution when posting/replying to someone on social media, just as we would if we were speaking to them face-to-face. Just because there will be no consequences for our actions on social media, we must not exercise the “right” to harass others on social media. Furthermore, we must not accuse victims of being “snowflakes” for taking offense to our harassment. “Blaming the victim.” Just the mere thought of that is so silly!

Problem 3: Addiction

With celebrities being as “successful” as they are, we love to obsess over how “interesting, entertaining, fun, and worthy of our attention” their lives are; and with our friends and followers being as important to us as they are, we love to obsess over how fun it is to talk to them. Frankly, we as consumers are spoiled by the convenience of entertainment, information, and socialization that we often manage to over-immerse ourselves in it.

The key word here is “obsess.” We are so anxious to know everything about everyone at all times. If ignorance fills our minds, even just for a moment, curiosity and worry get the best of us until we refresh our minds with new, current information. As a result, we allow social media to take up much of our free time until it practically replaces our work, sports, hobbies, and relationships. Nowadays, we are seemingly incapable of living without our smartphones nearby at all times.

Just received an ‘A’ on an exam? Time to go seek the approval of random people on social media! Just got into a car accident? Time to demand sympathy from random people on social media! Just got proposed to by your high school sweetheart? Time to seek congratulations from random people on social media! Events that we used to be able to enjoy or endure in the company of our closest friends and family, we now almost immediately run to social media to share with people we do not even know! You can argue that there is nothing wrong with this (with which I would agree), but the point here is that we lack intimacy. Our audience is now an anonymous crowd, and its approval/disapproval of us drives our entire lives.

Furthermore, apart from detracting from the intimacy of our lives, addiction to social media physically affects us in a variety of latent ways. For instance, it causes fatigue (lack of sleep), laziness (lack of exercise, proper communication skills, etc.), distraction from important daily tasks (ignorantly and selfishly scrolling through messages while operating motor vehicles, because our curiosity is “more important than ensuring the safe travel of ourselves and others”), and even eye problems later in life (due to extensive exposure to displays, especially before bed). The list goes on. Social media might be okay to use in certain environments and in moderation with other activities and tasks, but we need to learn when to get offline and stay offline before we begin to permanently ruin our lives.