Social Media... a lovely topic to kick off this whole blog! It's something that surrounds me on a daily basis. I could talk for days about this but I'll try and condense it down into a nice little blog post and i'll try my best to keep you interested.
We currently live in an age where we are more connected than ever and we've all used social media at some point, if you're reading this you probably accidentally clicked on this on Facebook. We've all found ourselves in that situation of trying to remove an embarrassing photo or removing that one annoying "friend" from our list who posts the "JUST DID A CLEAN OUT OF MY FRIENDS, FEEL PRIVILEGED IF YOU'RE STILL HERE XO". It's all fun and games and something we don't really take for granted but do we take the time to stop and look past our phones to see what effect social media has on us not just on a psychological level but on a physical level also?
A Psychologist by the name of Sherry Turkle did a Ted Talks called "Connected, But Alone". She makes a great point about social media and that is that we sacrifice conversation for connection but ultimately we become isolated. It's like one big paradox, everyone is so immersed on "social" media that they feel they have no one to turn to and this can lead to mental health issues such as depression. It's sad that we would have to turn to a piece of technology to express our feelings, it can end up worsening the problem.
Due to us being constantly connected we are open to IMMEDIATE conversation. Anyone at any time can contact us through text or Facebook message. We're under a constant pressure to reply to these people because if we don't we are seen as ignoring that person. It's absolutely crazy, there's no winning. We've totally lost the concept of personal space because it's being invaded by our online presence. Your online persona has no personal space. This can lead to stress and anxiety.
One of the things that seriously annoys me about social media is various celebrities. Don't get me wrong, social media is a great way to stay in tune with celebrities and you can see what they are up to. When celebrities start posting altered photos of themselves, people who look up to them want to be just like them and they feel under pressure to obtain the same image as their favourite person and this can lead to eating disorders.
As I mentioned earlier, social media can fill a void such as loneliness. The Royal Society of Open Science carried out a study on Facebook friends vs. Real friends. The results showed on average that people with more than 150 Facebook friends had in fact only 4 friends. Having more friends on Facebook is seen as a sign on popularity and can help boost self esteem but ultimately giving us a false hope.
Social media has given us a platform to create the perfect versions of ourselves. We have the power to post whatever we want. With the use of photo apps like Snapchat or Instagram we can post manipulated photos of or too our so-called friends who are all doing the exact same as us. All of this combined allows us to create a perfect world that is far from social.
