The Problem With Social Media
I want to start by acknowledging the many benefits of social media. It’s enabled us to connect in a way that was impossible to comprehend 100 years ago…even 50 years ago. It’s like coming home and finding 50 people in your living room - it’s crazy! Seriously, have you ever thought about just how amazing it is that we live in a world where we can basically broadcast our thoughts to everyone? This includes strangers, relatives, friends, and acquaintances, or people we just met? We can chat, go on forums, spend countless hours on Reddit, whatever your social media fix is, it serves as a reminder that we are not alone and that ANYONE can give you a transcript of their mind, their day, their thoughts, opinions, outrage, emotions, etc at any time of the day. I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether that’s a good thing or not.
As with all tools worthwhile our time, there is always a list of drawbacks that comes along. Always two sides of the coin. Sure, social media has helped independent business owners, revolutionized branding, and marketing for us all and kept us connected halfway around the world, it has also done so at a cost. This is where my focus lies today. I want to talk about the many ways social media continues to be a tool that is using us as opposed to people using the tool. These are simply my observations on the subject based on personal interactions and insights…
1. It Breeds A Debilitating Level of Comparison
When I hear people speak about their lives relative to others’ dreams and opinions, I often say this…
“Do you know what the best way to get depressed is?”
No - what?
“To compare yourself to others.”
Comparing ourselves to others is the PERFECT recipe to kick start your daily dose of depression. Thanks to social media, now everyone can tune in on the daily outpour of the inane minutiae of everyone’s life! Carefully packaged in a one-dimensional narrative, this image of someone you know little to nothing about can form thoughts and ideas in your head about who they are and how successful or happy they are. Now that you’ve got part one of the detail covered, let’s multiply that by the number of friends or followers you have to amplify that feeling of hopelessness that you and only you can feel as you sit there eating a bag of Cheetos on a Friday night. Suddenly, a simple act of self-indulgence and relaxation in your pajamas turns into a whirlwind of thoughts and voices leading you to question your place and existence in the world. Your once unassuming, unashamed sense of self transforms into a comparison machine and if you let that go on in your mind, it will eventually change the internal monologue that now brands you as a single, lonely, pathetic fat-ass who eats too many cheesy snacks. If Rebecca ran a marathon, Steven performed his first concert, and Briana is now a crown prosecutor, then where does that leave me?
It’s become way too easy to compare ourselves and it takes a level of emotional maturity and intelligence to understand that the only person we should be comparing ourselves to is our past self. Also, what you see online is not always the full picture which leads me to my next point.
2. We Only See or Hear a Fraction of A Story
Success comes with many failures and it’s not very entertaining to always be talking about failures so people continue to post and boast about their successes all the while shading the world from the painstaking trials and failures that led them to the accomplishment in the first place. We get this false and delusional idea that successes are earned through privilege or some other factor alone. Sure, that could be true as privilege gives way to opportunities and not everyone has access to the same opportunities. Regardless of privilege or any other factor or group that you belong to, one thing is certain. All of us have to work hard for something at one point in our lives. Maybe you won’t see it with those that are privileged in some ways but you won’t hear about how they had to work hard in others - because hey, it’s not sexy to talk about our figurative blood, sweat, and tears as it is to celebrate a victory. We all have our battles and until we live in a culture that is not so happiness obsessed, we won’t be hearing about those battles too often. I personally think we are getting better at sharing our stories and struggles, but it’s still frowned upon by some, leaves a sour taste in others’ mouths in addition to assumptions and judgment that might hinder or harm others. Until we can temper our assumptions and attitudes, and it becomes normal to share a mix of sweet and bitter memories online, we will be constantly basking in a mirage of victories that look good from a distance. Victories that may or may not be there…
3. Beautiful Lies And The Subtle Art of Being Disingenuous
How easy has it become to lie about something, not to mention steal intellectual property and masquerade it as your own? We hear quotes and see memes and too often, they are all based on lies. It’s not the facts that matter, some would argue, as long as we get that reaction we were looking for. It’s just a story!
This is dangerous as it starts to shift our culture into a web of lies. How hard is it to fact check something? Living in the information age allows us to have access to information literally at the tips of our fingers! Then why are we so quick to tell lies? Maybe we’re lazy, maybe people just don’t care about truth as value anymore. I don’t know all the answers.
Another side of this lie is the life that you are showing others. People like to portray their lives in a way that they wish to be portrayed. It’s no longer okay to be genuine and honest and comfortable being yourself. Due to the pressures of commercialism, we now feel that we must project a certain persona to the world - as if we are celebrities. The truth is, not everyone is a celebrity that has to purchase insurance for their reputation as it is part of their livelihood. Yet many of us pretend like we are and in doing so, we project a false sense of self to the world that further exacerbates the toxic culture of obsessive popularity, vanity, and consumerism in the first place. I am sure you’ve met people you once thought were super cool and fun to hang out with and when you met them, you realized just how incredibly boring they really were. The truth is, they are good at using social media to create a facade. The true test of authenticity only lies when you meet and get to know a person beyond the on-screen profile.
4. Your Attention is Monetized
Being a highly sensitive individual, I find social media paralyzing at times. Being highly sensitive doesn’t mean I am at the cusp of an emotional breakdown at all times, it means my senses are hypersensitive (kind of like Daredevil - I tell myself and others to sound cool) and yes, I do experience joy and sorry more deeply than others. Now as someone who is highly sensitive, I find the constant barrage of commercials thrown at me quite debilitating. Everyone is trying to sell you something and before you even have time to think about your purchase, you are drawn to another product, and then another service and the list goes on. Fast forward to a week and now you find yourself with an eccentric assortment of products you can’t recall the need for anymore. Sound familiar? You’re not alone. Many people have shared this story and the truth is, we aren’t given enough time to think about rationalizing a purchase because our attention is being monetized. Attention is the new currency and businesses are using it to their advantage (that’s a plus for them) but it means we aren’t quite utilizing social media for the purposes that benefit us but instead are literally paying for others’ dreams.
5. The Rise of Pseudo-Experts and Social Justice Warriors
I am careful not to identify myself as an expert. Maybe it’s some confidence issues that I’ll admit to but I do sincerely believe that in order for one to be an expert, one has to have working knowledge and a combination of training or theoretical knowledge. The latter can be developed over a number of years through work experience but too many people these days claim themselves to be experts because they can read Wikipedia and paraphrase articles written by others.
I don’t have a problem with information sharing, what I do have a problem with is pseudo-experts. These people are charismatic and great persuaders and it only takes these two ingredients for them to create a YouTube channel and start dispensing their expertise to others to eventually creating a business out of their intellectual brag banks. We are all entitled to the thoughts and opinions of others and share our own but there is some danger in people blindly following the advice of someone who is not educated in a field they claim to be an expert in.
Then there is the Social Justice Warriors (SJW), these are individuals that will collect ANY AND ALL information on a topic that they are passionate about (in theory) because that passion is rarely put to practice. In fact, the only thing they are doing is crowding the feeds of their connections with their political views, all one-sided, all demanding change. Here’s the best part. This change only happens as they sit comfortably behind a screen. If you are someone that constantly posts, shares, sometimes very graphic images, etc of the political climate around, ask yourself this: What have you done for this cause other than posting it to your page? I applaud you for sharing and starting a dialogue in a virtual community (because sometimes that’s a great start to incite change) but let’s try to embody the values we lead rather than sensationalize them online. I do think social media has made it easy for oppressors, dictators, just general assholes to be caught and shunned or shamed in public (which I must say is somewhat gratifying). What is toxic, however, are groups of individuals who claim they want change but do little more than plaster their social feeds with all the injustices of the world. The real battle lies in doing something proactive. If you’re passionate, let’s hear it. Let’s hear your opinion on your own site or collective where we can all have a dialogue for change. Social media is terrific for this!
SJWs can also spread fake news which can be deadly and even start movements based entirely on lies and give rise to rhetoric laced with radicalism, hate, and lacking in good judgment and critical thinking.
Please use caution when you read something online. Ask questions, ask for qualifications, and take the time to research credible sources when it comes to finding answers to questions you have or the causes you care so deeply about. Sure some people might be great at speaking, but not everyone has the truth or humanity’s best interest in mind. Sharing is knowledge and knowledge is power but without action, that power has little influence.
6. Isolation
You can join 10 groups on Meetup or start a Facebook group and comment every two days. After a while, you’ll want to crave some face to face interaction because humans, after all, are social creatures. Social media creates an online community but it takes determination, hard work, and reasonable attempts to meet people in person or via video chats, etc to truly feel the effects of a community. Many people replace real-life interactions with a strong social media presence which is a terrible mistake to make as it only isolates and separates us from developing new connections and nurturing the ones we have with the people we love and care for. How many times have you been interrupted by someone who keeps checking their phone for updates? Or is posting a story while you’re having dinner, or is just completely incapable of a conversation that doesn’t involve a photo op every 5 minutes? What about people on LinkedIn that have over 500 connections and when the time comes for you to engage in a conversation or ask a favour, you only get a 2% response rate? What’s the point of having so many connections when only a small portion of them will reply? Personally, I don’t add anyone on LinkedIn that I have not met as it allows me to create a more personable and authentic professional experience. One that I know I can rely on when I do need the assistance of my professional network - because in the end, what’s the point of LinkedIn anyway?
It’s one thing to post about an issue but a whole other ball game to engage. Sure, branding experts will tell you how to boost engagement (and that takes a lot of effort) on our part. This engagement strategy is one that not everyone is well educated about. Even with good engagement, nothing replaces face to face or should I say, personalized attention and meetings. I once read something that compared a person who only posted versus engaging as the equivalent of someone going in the middle of a room at a party and yelling things at nobody. Sometimes that’s how I feel when I am on social media. I feel as if I enter a room and instead of having conversations, I am met with strangers all talking to themselves.
It’s easy to get lost in negativity and create an exhaustive list of all the ways the advent of social media has adversely affected our culture but I’d rather not take that path. I believe that many good things come at a price but it’s up to us in the end, to learn and explore the pros and cons of the things that bother us. It is, after all, our own personal analysis that will determine the extent to which we chose to combat the issues we complain about. I for one, have found ways to tackle each of the above issues among many others and although it’s a struggle to maintain, it has been the most rewarding part of my online journey. I’ll most likely do a podcast on this topic so stay tuned!