Background on my online presence: After looking myself up on the internet and evaluating the social media sites I have and the extent to which I am on them, I find it fair to say I have a rather large social media presence. The social media accounts I have include Instagram, Snapchat, and Tik Tok. While each of these social media platforms serves its own unique purpose they each are addicting to consume on a regular basis. I was introduced to Instagram first at the age of 11 after hearing about it from some of my friends in 5th grade. When I was younger I used to spend multiple hours each week posting content from my own life and liking other people's posts on a regular basis. Today I still spend a fair amount of time on Instagram scrolling through content however I post way less frequently than I used to. In the summer of 2016, I was introduced to Snapchat for the first time through a group of friends. At first glance, I thought the app was rather odd and pointless because all it involved doing was opening someone's snap and responding to them. Despite this, I gave the app a chance and soon saw myself become hooked to it like everyone else. Multiple times a day I am inadvertently grabbing my phone to access this app in order to communicate with people. Unfortunately, I am still using this app way too frequently today to communicate with a wide variety of people. Finally, I was introduced to Tik Tok in the summer of 2019. While I never post content I spend multiple hours per day scrolling through content.
Concerns/Dangers of Social Media: While social media has enhanced our lives in some good ways it has also introduced and heightened certain concerns. One of these concerns includes the content of our lives being shared to the outside without any of our knowledge. There have been many examples throughout our world of people's content being shared completely unknowingly. One example of this involves a 13-year-old girl whose parents were sharing her content as a younger child on Facebook. The consequences of people doing this involve a semblance of trust being lost along with a loss of privacy. The bigger concern of the use of social media is the potential for addiction. Unfortunately, many social media apps have features that increase the likelihood of addiction developing.
Notifications: One prime example of a feature that has enabled social media usage has been the usage of notifications. On a personal level, I have seen my usage with a specific social media app go up when I receive a notification on my phone. Notifications are the alert that pops up on your phone which alerts you if someone has liked a photo or messaged you directly. The reason why Notifications play a key role in promoting social media addiction is because of how prevalent they pop up. Each time a notification pops up it tempts you as a consumer to naturally want to look at that app. This was the intention behind each of these social media platforms enabling this feature onto their apps. In fact, a documentary I recently watched called the social dilemma mentions how the screen time usage of social media apps has gone up since the incorporation of notifications.
Mood: Another real danger with Social Media is the ability it possesses to have an effect on our mood. This could be the highs of someone liking your post or the lows of someone posting an image of you on Snapchat you do not like. Unfortunately, Social Media's ability to control our moods has highly contributed towards an increased suicide rate in teens and young adults from 15-29 years old.
Privacy: The third and possibly the most notable concern from social media is our personal privacy being violated. Several social media apps have enabled features in them over the past several that have violated this even more. One example is Snapchat's newer feature called Snapmaps. Snap map is a feature where you can see your friends' locations and how long ago they were on the app. More concerningly this feature enables another way for the government to see our locations on a regular basis.
Impact on the future of Gen Z: With my Generation Gen Z being the first generation to live out the majority of their lives with the existence of social media the long-term implications of having social media are unknown. Unfortunately, this means my generation is essentially the test bunnies of potential long-term physical and mental health damage resulting from use. Regarding physical health having a device that encourages you to sit down and look at it rather than to be exercise or be present in any situation will cause obesity rates to skyrocket over the years. Additionally looking at your phone requires you to bend your neck to a certain position while on it. This could have effects on the posture of your neck as you age. Another long-term impact social media can negatively contribute to is your ability to land a job. A certain photo or image you or someone posted of you doing or saying something you shouldn't have unfortunately can prohibit you from landing a job in the near future.
My Plans for the Future: While I see and am aware of the many negative effects social media has had on people in my age bracket I intend to keep all my social media platforms. Despite this, I will make more of a concerted effort to monitor my usage of each app. In the near future, I do not intend to get any other social media platforms except Linkin which will be used for job purposes strictly. Overall this assignment has further informed me about the dangers of social media and the effort I can take individually to reduce the amount of content I am posting.
Works cited: https://geeksroom.com/2017/06/snapchat-snap-map/111555/
https://www.fastcompany.com/90315706/kids-parents-social-media-sharing
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11464826/
https://www.healthline.com/health-news/teen-suicide-rate-spikes-56-in-9-years
