The issue with social media

On Social Media

• How do you keep it real in a fake world?

• Comparison is the thief of joy

• Algorithms don’t care about humans

Introduction

I’ve been on social media since 2010. So that means that I've been ‘on’ for the last 12 years. How crazy when you count the numbers! What started out as an innocent profile on Facebook, quickly expanded into accounts across multiple platforms (Instagram, Snapchat, etc.) Throughout these years, I've grown to have a complicated relationship with social media. I went from feeling indifferent to obsessed with it, and with that obsession came a sense of hatred towards it. I often wondered why a mere online reality dictated my emotional state so much? Frankly, being online almost 24/7 for the bigger part of my youth has hurt me in more ways than I like to admit. 

One year ago (in 2021) I took a hiatus of six months from all my profiles. At the time I felt overwhelmed and in need of some time ‘off’. I figured that a digital detox would allow me to sort out my life and focus on what’s really important. I knew that social media, and more particularly upholding an internet persona, wasn’t working for me. It was a great relief that during the past year I’ve discovered many people who feel the exact same way. Because of this distance, I’ve gained a clear insight on why social media is inherently problematic. In this blog I’ll share what these issues are, and why they tend to have such a profound impact on our mental well being. 

How do you keep it real in a fake world?

The product is you…

Before I dive into the issues, let me clarify that social media platforms aren’t entirely negative or evil (although this can be disputed). A good social media profile can be extremely useful when used properly. It can be your talking tube to the rest of the world. It allows you to tell the story you want to tell. This is especially interesting for social figures in need of a social following, or businesses trying to attract new clients and making a buck. In essence, it’s a story of advertising and marketing. 

Alright, but how can someone convince you that their life, or product is worth your time and attention? Let me, as someone who almost started a career in marketing, give you a little ‘advertising 101’ insight. When you try to sell something you basically try to create a reality that is better than ordinary life. You show something that makes life x times better and easier. You promise the end of suffering or a moment of bliss. And when people finally believe you, you’re in. You’ve gained their confidence, thus also their wallets and watches. 

… and the price is happiness.

Now, how do you do that, you ask? In this digital age it is childsplay to photoshop or filter out any imperfection. Take a look at Danae’s Instagram profile. She shows how posture and clothing change everything. A picture tells a million stories, but keep in mind that every picture is set up, taken and posted to tell one particular story. Very often that story is success, happiness or love. Precisely the emotions that so many of us eagerly long for. 

This all boils down to some level of comparison between the product and the buyer. Of course, we all want to be happy and successful. And here you have these companies or influencers promising our deepest yearnings. “You too can be *insert emotion*. All you need to do is buy our products and believe our stories.” It’s almost too easy, you’d be a fool if you miss out on this deal.

The pursuit of happiness has become a commodity, and social media have created a portal for everyone to exploit this. 

Comparison is the thief of joy. 

Social media guides us to look externally for deeply personal answers. The thing is, that all people have different opinions and values that push them to be the way they are. It’s also not a crime to share these opinions and values with the outside world. Every human is a complex being with complex emotions and a life that’s just as complex as anyone else's. 

The issue is that social media doesn’t leave any space for the multilevel complexity of the human condition. 

By being active on social media, you create an internet persona. You can build this up however you please, that’s the power of it. The rise of social media has allowed us to literally filter out the parts of ourselves that we don’t like, and highlight the things/events/stories we want to share with the world. 

It’s all but a compilation of the pretty moments. 

I’ve kept this sentence in my instagram bio for years as a way to raise awareness of the fact that it’s not a full picture of my life. If anything it’s a scrapbook of the best moments in my life. Those were almost exclusively positive ones: parties, vacations, beautiful places. You know, the happy moments. In some sense, my internet persona was a façade to project my happiness upon. And to this day, it still is. No one wants to publicly display parts of themselves that they’re not proud of. 

This fragmentation of the human experience paints an unrealistic portrait. The snapshots of the peaks in life become the whole movie. And at one point there’s a crux between your internet persona  and your real life. The two don’t match one another anymore, and you start to feel alienated during the lows of life. 

“The numbers are meaningless”

However you turn or think about it, social media is the perfect environment to brag, or promote yourself. Very often posting or reacting is a cry for attention: “Look at me! Do you see what I have/do/think?” These cries get validated with followers, likes or comments, which in their turn get reduced to mere numbers. Your page has X followers, your post has X likes and X comments. But truly, what’s the relevance of these numbers in your real life? 

Why do I experience rejection when I see my amount of followers drop after I post something? Why does a post with less than 100 likes feel like a failure? The over-validation of these numbers makes us borderline crazy and causes us to swing between euphoria and deep disappointment.

I’ve learnt that the numbers are meaningless. It’s us who give them a dipropionate amount of meaning. This makes something inherently worthless dictate the value of our life. And that is, brutally put, a very sad way to live your precious moments here on earth. 

Algorithms don’t care about humans

Doomscrolling

Doomscrolling is a new term referring to the tendency to continue scrolling through bad news, even though that news is saddening, disheartening, or depressing. The internet can lead you to the weirdest rabbit holes. Sadly there’s also the fact that controversial news gains more traction with the readers. We tend to ininteract more easily and passionately with something negative than something positive. 

Because of this the algorithms will more likely present you negative content than the positive. Algorithms don’t have any emotions or ethical values (yet?). It is designed to keep users interested for as long as possible, not to take care of your mental health.

You know what you like, and so do they

The problem is that such an algorithm creates an information system which doesn’t require any effort from the user. All the content is neatly pre-selected according to your preferences. This creates a self-reinforcing mechanism that strengthens your own thoughts and beliefs. You get exposed to like-minded content and people. But simultaneously you’re withheld from contradicting thoughts and opinions. Because of this you lose track of the full picture, that is the dialogue between all the parties. Instead you go into a monologue. Only one side of the story gets told, commented on, elaborated, retold, and strengthened until it becomes a bulletproof narrative. 

The internet has a lot of everything; from cat video’s to ASMR. Endless scrolling can eventually put you in touch with a bit of everything. It does so to broaden your interests in their database. Perhaps you’re really into origami animals, or famous womens feet… I’m not judging. But perhaps you’re totally not into that, and your feed proposes to you all kinds of random content, which gets etched in your brain. 

People often say you are what you eat, but it’d be better to say you are what you consume. The eyes are a gateway to the soul, so whatever you see finds a place to nestle inside of you, albeit subconsciously. You simply cannot let the randomness of the internet dictate what you consume. Protecting yourself from any unwanted content is crucial for taking care of your mental health. 

Conclusion

We have to realize that as long as social media are free services, us, the users, will remain the product. Our data; that is our thoughts, interests, and preferences are collected and sold to businesses. We get promised perfection and get shown the road to happiness, only in exchange of our limited time and attention. 

This digital environment makes it a lot easier to build yourself up through snapshots of your peaks in life. Those pictures, videos and captions build your internet persona, and through the years you can gather an extensive history of exclusively magnificent moments. The trap here is that we tend to compare our imperfect reality to someone else's fabricated perfection. There will always be an unbridgeable gap between these two points. No one is perfect, we all know that, but social media offers the canvas to paint that picture quite vividly.  

Social media also has a dopamine reward system. With followers, likes, and comments it offers a validation system to whatever you put on public display. And although the numbers, in and of themselves, are meaningless, they represent something that we all yearn for: attention and validation of our reality. 

The algorithms that dictate what we see on our feed, pray upon this universal human desire. The system is programmed to keep the users engaged for as long as possible. It doesn’t bother with human emotions or ethics. Negative news awakens more emotions, thus keeping us longer engaged. This creates a doomscrolling experience, where you can go down a rabbit hole of saddening and depressing posts. In search of more interaction, the algorithm also pushes content that is in line with our vision of the world. We’re inherently drawn to the known and aversive of the unknown, but on social media this is artificially strengthened. All of a sudden complex questions get answered with unambiguous answers. This lack of critical thinking has become a true danger for our societies. 

Again, I’m not saying that social media is bad or evil. It all depends on how you use it and how much you value it. Sadly, this often happens disproportionately, causing more damage than good. But we don’t need to be slaves to our devices and the capitalistic motives behind them. We can be free in our online presence, but have to stay mindful of the relevance of it all. Know that it’s all a facade, a composition with a heavy fragmentation of the complex human experience. 

So here are my last words of advice to you:

No one’s life is perfect, not even of those with a seemingly perfect instagram profile. Follow your own truth and express yourself freely without the desire for external validation. Make lots of pictures and videos, they’ll last you a lifetime. Just don’t forget to smell the flowers and feel the air on your skin when you do. Because if you don’t, you’ll look back on the pictures and it’ll feel like you’re watching someone else’s life, instead of reliving yours. 

Blog out!

Durim

21/02/2022