Social Media has certainly impacted all of our lives.  It has helped us connect to those far away, it has helped us help each other and mitigate the impact of natural and manmade disasters, it has helped us share the joys of everyday events, grow our businesses, and so much more.  It has also impacted us negatively, making it easier to perpetrate scams, ostracize those who are already marginalized, spread rumors, and provide unrealistic physical and emotional ideals.  After discussing this in class, a student wrote what I found to be a very insightful reflection on the issue.  She graciously agreed to allow me to post it here.  She raised many important issues and I look forward to a lively dialogue via your comments. 

The Potential Impact of Social Media ~ Raquel Weinberg

When we discussed social phobia as well as the adverse affects of social media and technology in the beginning of the class, I was at first reminded of the children I babysit who I find more and more to be obsessed with their devices. Whenever I see this, I am always reminded of myself at their age (5 & 8) I think about how at the time I had no clue what the Internet really was and phones were completely off my radar (forget about iPads!).

I often times find myself confused by the world that is social media. As someone who grew up sort of on the cusp of social media becoming “a thing” it’s very interesting as well as alienating to have experienced and to be able to objectively see both sides. On one hand I can clearly remember a time before social media, when all my friends would talk to each other face to face, and there was no guess-work when it came to relationships. What you saw was what you got. However, I was in middle school when social media really took off (when Facebook suddenly wasn’t just for college aged kids) and navigating the social environment suddenly became a whole lot more complicated. All of a sudden people could say one thing in person and a completely different thing online, and the discrepancy between the two “personas” was (and still is) strange to me.

We talked about how though we have social media now and all these means for connection, we are somehow more disconnected as ever. I think social media plays such a huge role in this because no one is authentically themselves online (or at the very least it is rare). Everyone wants to portray the most perfect version of themselves (stemming back to the real vs. ideal selves) and because social media allows us to create these “ideal” versions of ourselves, I think many people get caught up in that fantasy. It becomes an addiction; people love the attention this “ideal internet persona” that they’ve created brings them. The likes, the fans, in some cases money, are all incentive to continue falsifying their lives, but at what cost?

I believe that because we are not portraying our “real” selves online, that we as people are consequently unable to form meaningful and true relationships through social media. Because we are not speaking to that person, we are speaking instead to the persona this person has created that they think others will like better. In the end however, all we are met with is a phony mask, void of any real depth because it is not really them.

And I believe that because of the lack of sincerity behind these social media masks we put on each day, that people are alienated by their interactions in everyday life. In real life, they do not receive the mindless praise for the things they would online. But also they then no longer know how they should act in reality vs. social media. We have learned how to have conversations between personas, not conversations between people.

This is a topic I’m really passionate about because although I do believe that social media, when used properly, is an amazing tool (really truly amazing), it is also completely rotting us as a society. Our priorities are completely skewed; we idolize people who take deals from companies to sell garbage to their impressionable fans. Hype creators who put their lives and others at risk for the sake of a picture of video. And what are we learning from this as a society? What are kids growing up today learning? It’s truly frightening where we have allowed this to go.