The truth about social media by Natalia Noone-Jones

The truth about social media

NATALIA NOONE-JONES says social media is failing our communities.

There are 4.62 billion social media users in the world today.

On average these people spend nearly 2 and a half hours on social media every day. As of January 2021 82% of the New Zealand population had social media, and the average time spent per day, thankfully less than the rest of the world, is at 1 hour 53 minutes as of 2019. Still, comparing this to the rest of our usual routines, this is nearly a third of the time we spend at school everyday. If everyday we went to school from 8:40- 3:10 and then came home and spent 2 hours on social media, we’d only have a few more hours of daylight. Social media is taking time away from us. Aren’t there better things to do?

My solution to this social media fixation is to switch off completely and enjoy the extra time we get to spend on hobbies and things that will benefit us. Social media does NOT benefit us. There are so many new findings of how shockingly negative social media really is, all over the world. For example: In the UK… ‘a significant relationship was found between heavy social media use and worse self-esteem’ and body image issues in the UK are made worse for one in three girls because of social media. In the US, 1 in every 3 adults think social media is harmful and only 1 in 10 think it has a positive impact on users. In Australia researchers have said ‘increased social media use can intensify the symptoms of depression’. Social media: It’s everywhere. It’s bad. Social media is a very new thing. Phones, computers, iPads: they haven’t been around for long. In the past, not only did we not have the technological advancements to have social media, the world also didn’t need it. In the old days, the idea of posting, tweeting, liking and commenting online would’ve been ridiculous and it still is if you think about it. Life was a lot simpler before all of these new inventions, and in a lot of ways, it was better before social media was made. Socialising is not complicated, so… why does talking to someone online have to involve all these harmful and time-wasting features? Somehow, seeing people in person has fallen ‘out of trend’. We need to get rid of social media altogether so we can get back to enjoying each other’s company like we used to. We are being pushed apart by social media, NOT brought together.

Social media are websites or apps that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking according to the Oxford dictionary. By that definition, social media is not a need. It enables us to do things we couldn’t do before, but it is NOT necessary. Having it is an urge most young people seem to have, but it comes with a high cost for our mental and social lives. Our self-esteem is at an all-time low when we spend our time looking at fake, perfected pictures of other people’s ‘lives’ .

Social media is the perfect environment for cyberbullying and hate comments, and the people using it are young and vulnerable. Social media impacts our social well-being because it stops us from being present in the moment with the people around us.

Research shows that teenagers who spend more than 3 hours on social media a day are at a higher risk of getting mental health problems. And another study in 2016 found that greater social media use for teenagers is linked with worse sleep quality and higher levels of anxiety and depression. The evidence is everywhere that social media is ruining teenagers’ mental health. On social media, we suddenly have the need for reassurance that everybody else likes what we’re doing or saying or how we look. It affects our behaviour in the real world.

I don’t see a future where social media is concerned. It is destroying this whole generation and it WILL affect the generations to come. Right now, there is no escape from social media, it’s always in the back of our minds. If we continue on the path we’re on, I wouldn’t be surprised if the world was filled with so many people who can’t function in reality. We’ll have generations of people who don’t know how to do real hard work because they’re stuck in the world of Snapchat and selfies. People who control social media would control our societies, the influence they have over us is unreal. There are so many people who want to influence the decisions of others, they’ve even been given a pretty tell-tale name: influencers. Now people make a living by being online celebrities and advertising products through their undeserved fame.

Though, what is social media useful for? To look at an opposing point of view, social media could be helpful to share and receive information and to express yourself and your opinions. But there are too many flaws. On social media, people are pressured into putting a filter onto anything they share. Everything is made to look better than it really is, and it’s destructive, especially to young people.

Not only that, nobody is safe when they are on social media. Anyone can get to you, and you can’t avoid them like in a real-life situation. Your online friends are strangers to you, and they can harm you just as much as anybody else you meet online if not more. You don’t know their real age or name and you’ve never seen their real face.

On top of that, social media is a dangerous weapon for spreading this misinformation like never before. Messages on social media are not filtered and nobody is fact-checking the information in posts. This allows anyone to say anything on social media without facing any consequences. I hope that one day people will wake up and realise how much harm social media is causing so that we can all have a better chance of a brighter future.