Social media has pretty much defined our generation. We get all of our information from Facebook groups, we send out our party invitations through Facebook, and heck, we even meet our significant others through Facebook! I really do love my Instagram, my Twitter, my Facebook, and even my Snapchat. But as much joy as these apps can bring, they’ve also filled me with tears, insecurity, and jealousy. Not to mention all of the hours I’ve wasted on these apps scrutinizing every little detail of my life, perfecting my pictures with filters, and comparing myself to others. Social media allows us to expose our lives to whoever we chose, but the problem with that is it is very easy to manipulate our lives into appearing more glamorous than they really are. You’re obviously not going to take a selfie when your face is breaking out badly, or you went an extra day without washing your hair. You’re going to wait until the night you go out and your hair and makeup are freshly done. But none of your followers realize that; they just see that you posted a selfie on an average Friday, and they think, “She’s so pretty! Why can’t I look like that!” as they’re sitting on their couch in their sweatpants.
Having the perfect Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts almost seems like an art. You need the clever captions, a variety of artsy pictures, the right filters, and the balance between posting too much and too little. We tend to compare ourselves to everyone based on our social media accounts. We become insecure because someone has more followers than us, more likes than us, or posts more pictures at parties than us. It becomes degrading, and we notice flaws in ourselves that we never knew existed. You feel as if you’re in a competition with all of your friends or followers; trying to boost your likes, your favorites, and your number of followers.
Besides social media creating unnecessary insecurities, the lack of face-to-face communication leads to a lot of misunderstandings between family and friends. I’ve had experiences where I haven’t been invited to events and my friends posted pictures at the event, or on the flip side, I’ve posted pictures with friends and my friends got mad at me for hanging out with them. Since sites like Facebook and Twitter are only text based, therefore there is no tone of voice or body language included in our conversation, which is essential for understanding each other. We tend to read others’ posts and interpret them in a completely different way than we would have if the person verbally said the exact same sentence to us. It’s also hard to gain a full understanding of someone’s perspective based on a single Facebook post. As we all know, there are two sides to every story, and getting mad about something that someone posted over Facebook is silly there is not enough information about the situation from a single post.
Finally, it’s actually very scary to think about the lack of privacy on social media. Yes, you can adjust your settings so that only friends can see your posts, but how many of your Facebook friends are actually your “friends?” Chances are many of these Facebook friends are just kids you go to school with but have never said hi to, or people you haven’t spoken to in five years. It’s so easy to just take a screenshot of someone’s post or picture and send it to someone else, which is actually really scary to think about! Even if you delete something, you never know who could have saved it before you deleted it. You also never know who is behind the computer screen- it may sound cliché, but there really is no way to prove that your followers are who they say they are.
I really do love checking up on my friends over social media, and gaining the extra bit of confidence from a selfie with a lot of likes. But if I had to choose, I honestly would say I liked life the way it was a lot better before social media took up such an important role in our world. It’s true when they say that old-fashioned face to face communication is the best way. No misunderstandings, no pressure, a lot more privacy, and a lot less comparing ourselves to others.
