Effects Of Social Media
A significant problem in our society is social media. People are strongly influenced by the things others do on social media platforms. Though many parts of social media have a negative effect, some people believe it can have a positive impact on their mental health. People have many different perspectives on social media. People say that social media is a horrible platform that breaks down children's brains. "Our brains pay close attention to information about ourselves and tend to compare information about ourselves to what we learn about others, so we fit in society." Though many believe that social media builds self-confidence and helps you grow as a person, it all depends on what side of social media you are on and how you take in the things you open your eyes to.
Life With No Social Media
Social media prevents us from doing many things that are productive or make us happier. When interviewed, Ms. Shipley, the Middle School Counselor, said, “Adults always say how their lives and friendships were easier, more real when they were kids. They say they had no phones, and you would landline call them and always go to houses and do active things outside, without electronics.” Students at ZIS agree. One student who responded to our survey said, “ I spend so much time on social media, it wastes so much of my time, and I tend to forget all the things I could be doing in the meantime” Clearly, social media can prevent us from many things that bring happiness or joy.
As Mrs. Shipley said, there are so many things we could be doing instead of being on social platforms, but what can we do now? Social media already has a significant impact on people's lives, and it's different than we can delete all social media platforms, or could we?
"I recently deleted TikTok, I got bored of it, and I didn't have anything for it. So I deleted it, and I finally feel like an actual 12-year-old in the normal world. Watching TikTok made me feel small and insecure. So I wondered what it would be like to delete it, so I did. Now it's been almost a month since I deleted it, and I feel so much better about myself and appreciate all the small things in our world." -anonymous student.
Social Media Evolving
"For kids in this time, social media has evolved from what it used to be." - Mrs. Shipley.
Many people remember social media for what it used to be. Tiktok originated with music. An old dancing app where people would find a trending song and dance along with the choreography that followed. Musically emerged into TikTok on November 10th, 2017, TikTok soon took a sharp turn, TikTok soon turned into a platform of less dancing and more of a variety of videos. People seemed to enjoy the new version much more, even though it created more significant mental issues and more outstanding unrealistic beauty standards. Social media has turned into a hate platform; they believe it's okay to comment on someone's post and comment something negative. These people comment negative things and don't realize that even if the post has millions of positive comments, the only comments the creator will pay attention to are the negative ones "by cyberbullying or shaming someone in any way. As well as making a post/video about something that can hurt the person."-anonymous
Beauty Standards
Social media influencers tend to post fake photos, making people even more aware of their looks as they think they must look like these influencers to be "pretty" when in reality, the influencers photoshop themselves just to fit the beauty standards. One thing people tend to forget is that even influencers have bad days; days where they wake up sick with puffy eyes, and even influencers wake up with their hair all over the place; people believe that everything on social media is reality and forget about what could be hiding behind that phone screen.
Beauty standards have evolved since ten years ago. Society makes people believe that to be pretty, you have to have a specific hair color and length, and your skin has to be a particular shape, color and texture. You have to be a certain height, you can't weigh too much, or you will be called overweight. You can't be too skinny, or you will be called anorexic. These beauty standards are highly unrealistic, and people are too blind to notice them.
Positive Impacts
We have talked a lot about how social media can put people down, but it's important to show both aspects. Many people believe that social media is all bad; it makes people feel smaller and brings down their self-esteem. This may be true but social media can still have a positive effect. It all depends on how people choose to view what they see on social media. For example, someone may see another person being very productive and accomplishing many things. You could either make yourself feel down because that's not how you feel, and you may think that you can't be as productive, or you could change the way you think about it, and it may motivate you to be like them and do something more effective than being on your phone.
You can also learn so much, you may encounter a sport or activity that you never knew you could do and never tried, but because of social media, you were able to learn and now know something about yourself you never knew.
Age Requests
Every app comes with an age request. Whether you choose to follow it is up to you but there is a reason apps have them.
People have different opinions on whether or not you should follow these requests.
"I don't think it matters what age you start. Either way, it can target different audiences, bad or good," said-anonymous student; this is a great point. Social media can target many different audiences and affect people no matter what age, but is it still worth following? "I think social media is hard to get rid of but isn't good for you" Social media can be such an addicting thing. If you download it at a young age, you could get so incredibly addicted and don't know how to get rid of it.
The young audience may be exposed to many things they need more time to prepare for; this could lead to body insecurities at a younger age, growing up too fast. Ultimately, it is all up to you if you believe your mind is ready for the things you may encounter.
Money
Money plays a significant role in what happens on these apps. Apps like tiktok don't care about the viewers and what they view; no matter how badly they're doing it, they will keep doing it as long as they get the money from it. So they're constantly changing things to reel in people and making apps addictive to get money out of it. They want to do dangerous or scandalous things just so more people will get on the app and interact with it, as long as they get their income.
Social media can have so many effects, positive and negative. Many people think our world would be better without social media, and many believe the opposite. There is no correct answer because only some things social media does are terrible, although the negatives may overrule the positives. Social media is a world of its own, and students mental health decline is not all social media's fault, that being said it does have an impact that varies between people. It's the people behind it; it's how people decide to fake their posts and comment on negative things affecting many people. So it's up to you and which mindset you want to choose. Do you want to see the negatives in yourself, or do you want to improve yourself? It's the same thing, just with a different mindset. So you tell me, is social media a bad thing?
