A personal experience and opinion-based discussion revealing the ugly facade of the 21st-century youth culture surrounding social media
Generation Z, also known as "Gen Z", is considered to be the most revolutionizing cohort of people in history who are given the opportunities that previous generations weren't given. A generation where societal norms are constantly changing and people are evolving. Gen Z undoubtedly has the upper hand on life considering how today’s society has evolved to be unprejudiced, opened to various interpretations of concepts, and especially how heavily influenced we are by the media. However, as wonderful this generation of mine is on the surface, beneath lies a dark culture that we established and adjusted to.
Unaware of the Damage
I began to ask myself questions like, “Why don’t I have as many likes as them? Why don’t I have as many comments as them? Why isn’t my life as amusing as theirs’? Why..can’t I be like them?” These were just a small portion of the endless self-detrimental questions that were cycling through my head while scrolling post by post. And the worse thing about it is that- I caused that feeling myself; It all was uncontrollably reckless. I wasn’t aware of how destructive these social platforms made me feel. And continuously throughout the day, I would watch Instagram or Snapchat stories of people displaying their “awesome life” that made me ask myself, what the hell am I doing with mine? Later on, I began to realize how self-demeaning and self-deprecating I became because of what social media has made me evolve into. I’ve become accustomed to the kind of culture that we the people unknowingly created- and it’s unquestionable that this is inevitably going to continue troubling people. Anxiety, depression, stress are all mental issues that a multitude of people go through during the usage of social media and it's a major aspect that we're ignoring.
A Crave for Praise
I’m not implying Social media itself is bad, and I’m not only pessimistic about it. In fact, it’s a place for people to show creativity, a place of inspiration, a place of spreading a good word out into the world, and it’s something that Gen Z incorporates in their daily lives. It’s a privilege that we are able to use and importantly it’s a place for an opportunity that our generation is making great use of. But there’s an ugly facade to it all that’s unspoken about. Countless teens I know are using it as a way for them to get validation, and a way to fabricate this image for people to approve of; We have the desperation of people’s approval. We are satisfied when we see people loving the image of us that we put out. Social media expert, Bailey Parnell, expressed on a Ted Talk,
"In Social Media we are the product. We are letting people attribute value to us. You know someone or are someone who has taken down a photo because it didn't make as many likes as you thought it would. We took our product off the shelf because it wasn't selling fast enough. This is changing our sense of identity. We are tying up our self worth and then we're quantifying it for everyone to see"
Parnell's analogy on how we are the product accurately supports my argument on how I believe that we show people what they want to see, and we feed off their fulfillment from viewing our content for acceptance even if it means changing how people view us. Again, not everyone applies to this, but a significant fraction of the youth in our generation are apart of this culture and some are unaware of it.
Relatability/Relevance/Reputation
As someone who is a regular user of Social Media, I have observed the three main ways people may or may not be mindful of while they are using these platforms.
I want to reiterate Bailey Parnell’s idea of how we exemplify ourselves as the product to our viewers. As people who are wired to fit into our surroundings, we want to appeal to audiences and contribute regular content to our media, in order to stay “Relevant”. Receiving recognition the way we are based on what we display to the public, and having a sense of importance to others is what continuously gravitates us to wanting more of this attention and validation. Thus creating addictive habits to where we love the macro amount of likes we get; We love the positive feedback from our latest posts- and we can’t get enough. This is just another factor that adds to our addiction. We have an urge to document every little success/event/experience in our lives and post them for people to see to let everyone know that this is what they’re doing, knowing that this will create a perception on them that they want people to view them as.
I explicitly remember a time where when the parties I went to, the majority of it wouldn’t even be called a party. When everyone got there we always took pictures of us as a big group. Everyone would ask to share all of the pictures that were taken afterward, we’d sit around on our phones editing/posting/asking people’s opinion on captions, and that was it. It was less social interaction and more social media. Every time someone would do something entertaining, we would film it and post. Every time we were hanging out with some people we would film it and post. While we would sing happy birthday to the birthday girl/boy, there would be countless phone flashlights shining down on them, and then after that our heads would be staring down at our phones to post. I can’t forget the time I walked into a party and not a single person didn’t have their eyes glued to a screen. It made me realize the kind of wretched culture that I have involved myself in and that we’ve become accustomed to. These so-called “social events” were just an opportunity for people to say that they were there and that they experienced something that was considered relevant at the time. It’s a strategy in this society that permits us to feel relevant among everyone.
Whether or not a person is participating in the use of social media, I’d say that having a reputation is universal. Countless bloggers, YouTubers, “influencers”, big names in the community hold a reputation against them including you and I. Nobody wants to be known for things that they intended to keep a secret or their past. These people behind the screens, feel entitled to continually uphold this image that only the public eye views and try to drive people away from any information pertaining to them that will be damaging because we care about these things. Again, this is a business. Big names out there especially have to keep ugly truths on the down low to refrain from losing their viewers. It’s a game of social hierarchy; it’s seen everywhere. From political standpoints, the beauty community, schools everywhere including mine, fashion industries, etc. It’s a culture where the most socially successful people receive these esteemed titles/praise and have this amazing background where any little wrong move they make in front of the community, creates damage in their career. We the people as a whole are responsible for making people judged and sadly, we conform with the status quo.
Cyberbullying's Contribution to Society
On the internet, we are allowed to voice our opinions and to share our thoughts on certain topics without being stopped. The reason why social media is seen as a great place is that we have the ability to say whatever we want whenever we want. We are so aware of the amount of freedom of speech we have online that people are using it to their advantage and negatively affecting if not a person, but a whole community of people. Cyber-bullying has been around since the dawn of social media. It's as if these people aren't thinking about the damage one tweet, or one post can do to someone mentally.. and even physically. Belittling someone, denouncing someone's self-worth, mocking someone's appearances are just a handful of the endless amount of ways of people bully others online. Because social media and the internet are all behind a screen, it's less confrontational and it increases the number of people who participate in this behavior knowing about how much they are able to say. On the dark side of this, this issue has taken away countless lives and some started because of an innocent post. Have you seen how something so little, and less thought about can be taken way out of context and proportion? Sad is such a basic term but it perfectly describes how I feel when I hear the endless amount of death cases that have occurred due to cyberbullying. It makes me sad when I hear there are people out there suffering depression, immense anxiety, and are finding "resolutions" through self-harm due to how the people on social media affected them. It makes me sad when I hear about the increasing amount of suicidal rates among not only Generation Z, but the Millenials as well. And what makes me even sadder, is when people I know are facing the same problems.
A silver lining
Creating this opinion-based blog-article with the intent of getting my thoughts out there for people to recognize the issues of Generation Z, and the struggles we face against social media, I want to appoint the tribulations. Though I still stand behind these issues one hundred percent, these popular platforms have opened up a gateway globally. Our generation has created a huge positive impact that will go down the history books for centuries. There are many young women participating in feminism and movements like the #metoo campaign where women all around the world speak up against sexual harassment. We live in a society where we have pride month dedicated to the LGBTQ + community that is changing the face of history forever and this is all thanks to the use of online campaigning. Nonetheless, people are celebrating cultural appreciation and diversity that is being displayed everywhere on the media. These are significant triumphs that the youth participates in and the adults. It's inspiring to go online and see people with all different world-changing intentions wanting to make a positive impact in the world. And we have done just that by the way people have been using social media effectively and morally. As this post is my very first one ever to write on this site, I think it's important to share these issues and that there is always a silver lining to it all.
Whoever might be reading this, I hope that you take account of the decisions and the underlying effects that may be going on when you log in to your social media account. I also hope that one day our generation will soon realize the damage that we are putting upon ourselves and onto others. I will continue writing more relating to this topic since I sincerely have a lot more to say and it will be less formally written than this one for sure. As the first post that I'll be posting ever, I just want to put out there for people to be mindful of our contribution to social media and how it also can negatively contribute to today's society.
Informational Sites on Mental Health from Social Media/ Resolutions