Let’s Talk About Social Media
Hey! This blog is about my personal thoughts on social media and I hope that it inspires you to reflect on the way you are consuming content on these various platforms. I know these days everyone has their beliefs on social media and it has been integrated it into each of our lives in unique ways. I see so many benefits of social media, mostly business purposes, but lately, the cons have outweighed the pros, for me, in a personal capacity.
I haven’t actively used social media for almost 2 years now outside of a Snapchat account for conversational purposes and the beloved memories that I have been collecting since like 2013. I also have a Facebook to stay connected to family and because I feel like my mom and grandmother would be really sad if they couldn’t tag me in anymore of their posts. Facebook, specifically Messenger is very popular amongst my non-American friends as well, so keeping the account has been beneficial. I have a LinkedIn that I keep vaguely updated just in case, and an incognito Pinterest that has a special place in my heart.
My social media usage is very selfish I would say. I take a lot in, but very rarely put anything out, but I am working on it.
The idea of mindlessly scrolling through carefully curated content by unknown-to-me app developers and data scientists makes me very uncomfortable. I do find myself scrolling through Facebook or Youtube ‘shorts’ every now and then and feel an immediate guilt and gross feeling when doing so. Nothing about what I watched really sticks with me long term, which used to be my justification for scrolling 2 years ago.
I would reason with myself that I was learning new cooking hacks, insight to color schemes that complemented my skin and clothing styles that look best on my body type. However, I think because the information was always being randomly suggested, rather than me seeking it, is why it was rarely implemented into my life.
Sidenote — I will say, that sharing memes or funny videos with loved ones when you know they will appreciate the content, or you can share a laugh is very special. And I do miss this at times.
In January of 2021, I deleted my Instagram for the final time along with my best friend. My weariness towards Instagram had grown strong before this as I was down to only a finsta account, (fake/private Instagram). If you don’t know, this is an account where you only allow a small number of close friends follow you and you post rather private content. Now, most people simply use Instagram’s ‘close friends’ feature.
Removing social media from my life completely had been on my mind for a while, so it wasn’t hard for me to let go when I did. I had also gotten acquainted with not using social media for large periods of time because I would always give it up as a part of my 40 day Lenten sacrifice and took other breaks from it throughout the year as needed.
It all went down after a trip to back to Michigan, the state where I had attended university. It was a 24 hour trip and I made a post that I was in Detroit. This triggered a flood of responses from people saying they couldn’t believe I was in town and didn’t tell them.
I couldn’t believe they expected me to tell them! Outside of occasional Instagram likes sent to one another, we hadn’t really connected in almost 3 years.
Was an Instagram connection the same as a friendship? It did not feel like it to me. They only knew what I chose to let them know about me and that was only a mere glimpse into who I was. Not to mention, I did not know much about who they were either.
When I got home from my trip and called my best friend to recap. During our conversation, I told her how upset I was at the amount of time I had spend on Instagram curating my stories just to roll my eyes when I got responses. She laughed at me but echoed that she was also tired of the app. I confessed that it had really been on my heart to let it go, but at the same time I felt like I needed it. She said, “Girl, ME TOO!”
At that moment we said, ‘f it’ and permanently deleted our accounts. Neither of us have looked back since. We did just go to Barcelona together and literally had the time of our lives and we left with so many great photos and memories we will always cherish. We mentioned to each other that we kind of wished we could share some of our fire pics, but not that bad.
I have a few reasons why I felt so strongly about removing social media from my life and, as the platforms have continued to evolve, why I still choose to abstain from them today. With that being said, I do see a number of positives that are a direct result of social media, and will begin by listing those below.
First, it is a great form of mass communication, if that is what you’re going for. You can let all your friends, acquaintances, and even your professional network know you’re that doing something at the same time. So in that sense, I find it effective in saving time, while maintaining relationships that mean something to you.
Second, I see that some apps are making an effort to combat the mental health claims made against them. I appreciate that Instagram and probably other apps are removing the number of likes and restricting hateful comments, helping to make it less competitive and negative for the people whose livelihoods do not revolve around the app.
I also like how it increases access to services in your area. You can search something like #LondonChineseFood and get all types of results and content directly from the restaurants or people who have dined there. I used to always find nail techs, hair stylists, etc this way back in the day and I think this is great access for these businesses to reach new customers.
Similarly, when there is a local event or idk.. a sale happening in your area, I would most likely find it because I liked a Facebook page or followed someone’s Instagram. Today, someone has to deliberately share that a local event is happening in my area for me to know about it.
Currently, I’m using Eventbrite and have email notifications turned on based on where I’m located. This is helpful, but also assumes that whatever organization has created and Eventbrite listing for their event. For restaurants, I trust Trip Advisor wholeheartedly. I feel like the reviews are very genuine, it is a worldwide platform, and the sponsored listings are minimal and clearly marked. Anytime I have chosen a restaurant based on TripAdvisor it has been a favorite.
Finally, using socials is a beautiful way to express yourself and your talents. I think that social media has provided a platform for anyone to broadcast their creativity and build communities that they may not have had access to otherwise.
For the right person, social media does present a number of positives and benefits. I do think that there is a healthy way to be a user of these various platforms and so I will delve into a few critiques that I encourage you to reflect on.
A major concern of mine is that social media is not promoting individuality. Everyone and their mom is now out here thinking they are supposed to be content creators. Which is great, we should try new things, but I worry we may be thinking small when we think about how we want to spend our lives because this is a clearer idea to grasp onto.
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The scrolling was always an issue for me. Just the action felt so mindless. Like you know how parents would always say that watching SpongeBob literally makes you dumber, that is how I was feeling scrolling through social media. I knew it couldn’t be good for my eyes, my brain, my fingers, and my mental health. I was literally being convicted for it constantly, and I knew God was telling me that it wasn’t best for me.
Another point involving the lack of individuality is that the algorithms notice the type of content or influencers we find intriguing, and ultimately repeatedly shows is similar content. This ends up leading to our ideals and tastes being altered. If we are seeing the same things over and over, this is bound to have an affect on our personal interests.
It’s like when you hear a song, and the first time you hear it you don’t love it, but then you hear it a few more times and you start to vibe with it and next thing you know it’s on repeat. I feel like this same effect takes place through social media with clothing, travel destinations, music, even people. It’s all repeated so much that we end up with no choice but to at least acknowledge it, even if we didn’t necessarily want to. Personally, the things that would get me are nail designs, shoes, and hair styles, but I think the repeated content affects us more than we realize.
Next, the social media influencer industry is also creating so much waste. This is happening in a few different ways. First, brands are constantly sending influencers PR packages and goods that come in elaborate packaging so their goods can be promoted aesthetically by the influencers they collaborate with. I have seen so many ‘PR giveaways’ and what not because these creators just have so much STUFF that they don’t use because they did not ask for it. But, I love to see that they choose to give a lot of it away as a demonstration of appreciation to their followers.
The second way is that it has the influencers audiences feeling like they need to buy new stuff to achieve the vibe in which they are literally being influenced to want. I have seen it with my own eyes and there are stats that back up the fact that people are buying more clothing to avoid wearing the same thing too many times, and in most cases, more than once on their social media feeds. I am predicting that the judgmental nature behind repeating outfits online will be disappearing soon as people become more eco conscious, however it is extremely problematic for the environment and our pockets in the meantime.
Speaking of repeated content, the fact that Reels and TikToks go viral based on the use of a trending song or sound is so ridiculous. I remember sitting beside my brother as he scrolled TikTok and his feed will consistently present him with videos of different people dancing to the same song within the span of a minute. I understand that this is a marketing tactic to promote songs, artists, and labels are winning because of it. But like, of course if we are hearing the catchiest part of the song over and over again, it becomes massively popular for like a week, this might not be a bad thing but I worry there is no longevity in it.
Another concern is a phrase I think I made up, called the ‘story mentality’. It was a feeling I would get at any moment throughout the day where I was constantly contemplating if what I was doing was worthy of being posted as a story or grid photo. This would lead me to consider if I could enhance my current situation to possibly become story worthy.
All day, every day, I was curating a story in the back of my mind. This could make sense if it were my job, but it was not.
My thought process included figuring out how to effortlessly capture something that I was absolutely putting effort into capturing. Then I had to think of captions, color schemes, brands or people to tag, fonts, you name it. It was a whole process for a 24-hour story or unsponsored post.
My next point is, we all know that the algorithm exists, but we we have any idea what the intentions of the algorithm really are.
Are we experiments and they are trying to see how long they can keep us on their apps? We know that these apps are designed to be addictive through the releasing of dopamine and just knowing the goal is to keep us addicted is enough for me. Here is some data if you want more facts based on different age groups.
I can’t help but wonder if brands are partnering with Instagram to discreetly make us want things we don’t really desire?
Literally who knows and I found it to be very unsettling, and I was always feeling like a lab rat. The app developers would also make random and drastic changes to these apps that we had to simply adapt to, which is why I chose to never take social media seriously as a potential career because I did not feel like I could trust the platform.
My cons are clearly outweighing the pros here, and we’re not done. There’s data that shows how bad social media is for our mental health. From children to adults, there is an inevitable sense of comparison when you are on an app as users broadcasts highlights from their lives. People are literally trying to look their best, and even though we all know it’s not natural, we still compare.
For young people especially, young meaning under 35 in my book, we are figuring life out and are easily impressionable. Yet, while trying to figure it out, we are always trying to appear our best for the internet. McLean hospital mentions that comparison is nothing new, before socials, we had magazines, but it is the volume and immediate access to the constant content that can be really traumatic for young people.
On his podcast, The Basement, Tim Ross talks about young people using social media and gave this analogy that perfect encapsulates how I felt as a social media user. He states, “when a photograph develops, it needs time in a dark room to get to a point where it can be seen in the light.” And I feel like young people are the same way. Figuring out who we are is hard enough without trying to do so in the spotlight, while constantly factoring in what other people are doing. I just feel like at a young age we are so much more impressionable and care so much more about what other people think so all of that and social media adds a thick layer to this pie.
Last thing I promise — the word Instagram literally has ‘insta’ in it. Referring to ‘instant’ which is already a problem in our culture. You post something on social media and you expect to receive immediate satisfaction from the likes, shares, comments, or even knowing that people took the time to view what you put out there.
We also have so access to instant information. People share videos, news updates, information wheels, live streams… and with all of this coming at us so rapidly, I can only imagine what the effect is on our attention spans. We have expectations to know everything right away or feel stimulated immediately. On the other hand, I ague with myself that this may just be a sign of the times and this instantness may not be the worst thing ever.
I guess my point in bringing all of this up is to challenge you to reflect on your social media usage, ensure that you are consuming content that adds light to your life, while making sure that it’s the type of content that you signed up for, and not what the algorithm assumes you want.
In the podcast, I refer to most of the concerns mentioned above, but I do not offer a solution. I omit this as my conclusion because I personally do not have one. Social media provides a platform where people’s livelihoods and close relationships are managed, and I cannot propose removing it from your life if it literally is your life. After listening to the podcast that corresponds with this blog, my friend (who I referenced earlier) made a suggestion and I would like to submit it to you.
She suggests that perhaps making an intention or promise to yourself to try your best to maintain your individuality as you navigate your presence and/or consumption of social media may be a way to combat some of the main issues that I present throughout this blog. This could look like giving yourself some time before making a purchase based off something you saw on someone else or taking a step back and reflecting on the content you’ve reviewed before moving on to the next post or tweet.
If you have any further thoughts, I encourage you to share them with me at using the email below or leave a note on www.letsgetinspired.club.
I love you!
Check out the Let’s Get Inspired Podcast and feel free to contact me @ alex@letsgetinspired.net and use this link to listen in. Instagram. Twitter.
