Social Media is Stupid
What better way to connect and communicate with others other than using social media? Direct communication may be preferable, but today social media provides the best ways to communicate safely and effectively with friends, family and strangers. It’s easy to communicate with others on a one-on-one basis, but with how busy our society is today, social media makes it easier to get your message across to many people in a short amount of time. Although this can be taking away from our personal communication skills, it is strengthening our timely communication skills. Social media allows us to feel important and that we are wasting less time. We can share our feelings and thoughts with communities and have an impact on society. Today social media is so influential that having a business without being on a social media platform may appear untrustworthy and unprofessional. People don’t want to just see your perfect portrayal of a public image. People want to see another way of interacting with your business. We don’t need business cards anymore. We have have smartphones and we have Google. If we favor something, we remember it or save it to our phones and look it up later. If we can’t find the info that we need, then we may search on another platform. It’s that simple. Social media makes it easy to connect with businesses, brands and people around the world.
Social media interferes with your personal life
One of the main issues with social media is that we are often connecting with people that we are unfamiliar with. A connection is just an interaction within a similar network. It’s not personal, as you can be waiting on a line at a supermarket amongst others. That is a connection because of location and grocery store preferences. At the end of the day, you probably wouldn’t directly interact with these individuals in your surroundings. But with social media, people tend to be more social than they would be in face-to-face interactions, and this can be a benefit or interfere with the personal lives of others.
People have different expectations on social media and there is a purpose for the interaction. When the purpose does not meet the expectation of another, this can conflict with peoples’ personal lives and self esteem. Other people just take social media too personally and assume personal attacks, or to be offended when it’s unnecessary. Others may just be insensitive to the feelings of others and cause problems for communities and groups of people. Most of the time our moods, manipulation of the network and our own personal agendas cause misunderstandings.
Distractions
Sometimes we need a break from everyday life and our personal problems. Social media provides that great escape, especially if we get bored of watching TV or reading a book. Today, especially during the pandemic, it may be safer to use social media as an outlet for entertainment, rather than going outdoors. We even use social media to determine whether it’s safe to go outdoors sometimes. Regardless, scrolling through a social media platform provides a great temporary escape. For 1 whole hour you were either reminded about your problems or you we’re completely swayed away from them. The reminders can provide a sense of consolidation, knowing that others are going through the same issues. The distractions can take things off your mind for a little while. Unfortunately, those that have a poor sense a timing may spend far more than one hour escaping from their issues. In fact, others may completely avoid their responsibilities to instead tend to something that caught their attention on social media. It just depends on your personality type.
Social media being used for other reasons
Of course social media is being used for alternative intentions. This is what attracts more people to be on a social media platform. But these alternative reasons can either enhance or interfere with the network and motives of others. The openness of social media invites a variety and wide range of intentions which can be helpful or unfavorable for networks.
Storing data
One of the many benefits of social media networks such as Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat is the memory storage. You can post, save and archive photos and videos. This can conserve space on your smartphone and eliminate the need for storage apps like Dropbox. Just save your photos on Instagram or Snapchat. There are obviously more suitable platforms for this intention, such as Dropbox, Google drive or iCloud.
Filters
Many platforms such as Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat have a variety of filters to make your social media experience more creative and enjoyable. However, many people take advantage of these filters and use them for the wrong reasons. Some people use these filters almost like a new way to get someone drunk and interfere with their perception of reality. They manipulate the public and conflict with the expectations of others. This can easily lead yourself and others into delusion and disappointment. People expect to live up to these filters, when they should be used for fun and games and maybe some network triggering. While some people may naturally or unnaturally have an animated or filtering appearance, that doesn’t mean that you should. I think that most people prefer other people to look natural anyway, because it looks more trustworthy. However, a more animated appearance can help draw more attention to particular markets and brands. People need to learn to discern the expectations that they have for themselves from the appearance of a business or brand.
Dating
In my article, “Social Media Better Than Traditional Dating Websites”, I mentioned that social media networks are often used for dating. Many people intentionally use social media to find people that match their ideal type. It’s easy to do this because the algorithms usually attract these connections. Again, this can either be a benefit or interfere with the network and the personal lives of others. Regardless, many networks such as instagram and facebook open the opportunity to meet a partner for dating, sex or true love, while still being able to use social media for its original intention. It’s almost as if social media can be a way to accidentally meet a love interest.
Stalking
Many people underhandedly use social media to stalk other people. They have no intention of supporting another person’s brand, profession or public persona. They just want to strangely watch the person behind the scenes. Other people just have secret admirers. Regardless, social media allows for this because it’s so easy to make an account with a minimal amount of information. There are also plenty of apps to secretly admire your crush behind the scenes. This is why a lot of social media influencers have turned to paid platforms such as patreon and only fans, for a more practical social media experience.
In other ways, stalking and dating sort of tie into one another. This is because some people may secretly try to learn about another person with intentions of trying to match their vibe, perhaps. In other words, hoping for someone to be a potential partner, gives others the right to watch behind the scenes until the timing is right to approach them directly. Others may watch behind the scenes as an enemy that just wants to copy you without giving you direct credit.
