In today’s world, almost everyone has some at least one social media account and many have multiple. These platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and so on provide a place for people to share ideas, memories, and photos with their friends as well as the rest of the world. They allow for news to be accessible to many and spread instantly as it is happening. Although social media has great intentions, is it really such a great thing for society?

There is no doubt that social media is a huge part of our daily lives. In fact, that is probably where you found this article. Its influence on us everyday is huge and is not going anywhere anytime soon which I am not too sure is that good of news.

Social media allows to people to put as many or as few details about their lives out there as they chose. Since you get to pick and choose what you put on the internet for people to see and others can do the same, our interpretations of each other’s lives can be incredibly skewed. It is easy to portray a “perfect” life on social media, when we all know that in reality nobody has a “perfect” life, or anything close to that. Even though it is a fact that nobody has a life without flaw, it is easy to become self conscious when looking through someone’s Instagram, especially if you do not know them personally.

Along with the issue of jumping to conclusions about others, social media also gives people more opportunity to bully and make fun of others. The issue of cyber-bullying is a serious issue that has been swept under the rug recently, but is defiantly still relevant today. Social media is one of the many internet outlets that this takes place on and an outlet where large amounts of people can be involved. The fact that these comments and threats can be made anonymously is both scary and even more intimidating than when the target knows the attacker’s identity.

Like I mentioned, social media is not going anywhere and has plenty of positives that come along with it. We as the users need to keep in mind that what we see online should be taken with a grain of salt and that the people we follow are real, just like us.