Is social media problematic?
As I have thought about this many times, it’s been hard for me to know how to express what I was thinking about the topic of social media until now. Social media is great to stay in touch with family and friends. It’s a form of contact that is easy and can let us become a part of the world that we want to live in without us actually needing to go out into the world and actually experience living it. We are able to make bonds and break bonds at the click of a mouse with the use of simple words on a keyboard.
How can that be bad?
Social media and depression
Well though it is great that we can see updates on people’s lives that we care about; is it possible that we are also setting unrealistic standards for ourselves? Can it be that we are viewing someone’s life on social media as perfect and aspiring because we see the perfect pictures of their perfect lives? If we are looking at people’s lives and comparing what “seems perfect” to our lives that we know still has a lot of work to be done, couldn’t that trigger depression? It’s easy for me to make my life look perfect online but that doesn’t mean it is perfect. I have my own battles, my own drama, and my own set of issues that I too have to conquer. Just because social media makes something look great that doesn’t mean it’s as perfect as it is being viewed by you. NO ONE, and I mean NO ONE, wants to put on their social media things that are going to make their lives seem mediocre or at all negative because that it isn’t uplifting to them. If it doesn’t look good or sound good then why would you want to share it? They want the perfect life just like everyone else does. One thing that we need to remember about all this is that though their lives look perfect and our lives may not seem to be, their lives have their own problems as well. It is important to be aware of how much we are allowing social media to determine our mood and demeanor about our lives. It seems to me that social media could easily trigger someone to struggle with their emotions because it is full of things that when compared to our lives could bring us down. Our real lives aren’t filtered the way our social media lives are.
Social media and people’s opinions
With today’s religious and political differences that exist across the nation’s people, you will notice that social media is an outlets for everyone’s opinions, judgments, and arguments. The bottom line is that everyone has a difference of opinion and everyone is allowed to freely speak their opinions. However, we are allowing people’s opinion to dictate our friendships and relationships through social media. We argue with people we do not know about topics that don’t even relate to us personally. There comes a point where we are so consumed by other people’s opinions and pushing our opinions that it completely engulfs us into an aspect of social media that is capable of running our lives. We start to forget that some of these fights aren’t our fights, and that we don’t have to agree with one another on every topic. I have strong opinions but that doesn’t mean that I should let a difference of opinion on social media become a problem large enough to let it consume my entire life. I can allow myself to move past something I disagree with to keep my own sanity. If we dwell on differences of opinions we can start being fueled by anger and arguments. We need to work on remembering that social media can be used for more than just arguments and agendas. Don’t let every opinion dictate who you are as a person, what you believe in, and how you feel about your own perceptions. Advocate for what you believe but understand that you don’t have to change everyone’s opinions because you never will be capable of such things. It can be emotionally draining if you expect an argument or discussion on social media to end in a positive light when everyone is going to be expressing their personal views and you can’t expect to change them nor for them to be able to change yours.
Bottom line
Social media can be a great resource for many things. However, I could see how it can be problematic. It can trigger reasons for depression and arguments when you dig into some of its aspects. It is important to focus on the fact that social media platforms are ONLY platforms. They aren’t real life. They may factor in to what people are doing and what large changes are affecting the world and how people feel about it, but it isn’t everything. We should attempt to make a change in letting go of people’s opinions rather than dwelling on them. Not letting the picture of someone’s life consume how are feeling about our lives. We get one life and we should live it, believe it, and act as we see fit. Everyone has opinions, challenges, and aspects of their lives that are different and what is viewed on social media isn’t everything.
