The Good, the Bad, the Internet

By Chelsea Martin

Whether you prefer scrolling through your TikTok feed, liking your friends’ pictures on Instagram, or keeping up with the world on Twitter, you probably have some experience with social media. Thanks to technological strides in smartphones and the ever-expanding Internet, social media has become a cultural phenomenon. People readily recognize the names of platforms such as Snapchat, Pinterest, Tumblr, and Reddit. As of a year ago, roughly 70 percent of US adults claim to have used Facebook or YouTube, and the majority of them visited those sites daily. Since Covid-19 and the resulting quarantine, our reliance on these platforms as methods of staying in touch has increased. More and more, social media engrains itself in

our daily routines. One thing we might not immediately realize, however, is how social media may be adversely affecting our lives on an individual and societal level. How severe are these implications, and how do they weigh against the benefits of these platforms?

To start, there are many great things that social media brings to the table. Whether it is seeing what your friends are up to or keeping up with relatives, sites like Facebook and Instagram let us more readily stay in touch with people that we might have otherwise drifted apart from. These sites also enable groups to easily organize and broadcast events. Furthermore, breaking news spreads to the public faster than ever through these sites. As a result, a culture of instant connectivity emerges that shapes the way we communicate with each other. 

However, as is often the case, good things come at a cost. Social media carries with it several worrying connotations. Arguably, the best-known side effect of social media use is the potential to negatively affect mental health. For example, hospitalizations due to suicidal thoughts and attempts among kids and teens basically doubled in the seven years between 2008 and 2015. Further studies have shown that excessive social media usage correlated with an increase in envy and insecurity, body image issues, eating disorders, and even addiction to smartphones.

Aside from mental health, another alarming ramification of social media is widespread disinformation. Social media acts as a hotbed for spreading untrue information and false narratives. To make matters worse, automated bots speed up this process by using user data to target individuals with personalized disinformation, posing as real people through the use of fake accounts. This nefarious practice has encouraged the spread of fundamentally flawed beliefs such as Covid-19 denial, antivax groups, and radical racism. It has also affected both the 2016 and 2020 election process. Thanks to the efforts of these disinformation groups on social media, division within our country feels worse than it has been in living memory. These less-than-favorable aspects of social media often do not receive the attention they deserve, being carelessly dismissed. These problems will continue to worsen if we fail to address them.

So, what do we do about it? Luckily, there are a few habits we can implement in our usage of social media to lessen these negative effects. When we come across a piece of rousing information, we should consider its source and credibility. Getting in the habit of fact-checking questionable information is good practice. Remember that programs like Photoshop exist and many people secretly use them to edit their photos. Of course, limiting the amount of time we spend on these platforms further dampens these side effects. Most importantly, take some time to consider your social media consumption and reflect on how it might be affecting you before you make that next post!