No doubt, social media has helped us all in various ways. From helping us market our services, to reaching more audience, to keeping up or reconnecting with friends/family, to entertainment and the list goes on. However, as we already know, life is binary. For one side, there is a corresponding other side. Here, we will be looking at some other sides of Social media some individuals do not pay attention to. We shall be considering some negative impacts of too much social media and how you can start using social media in a healthier manner (which would be discussed in Part 2 of this article).
Some of the flip side of social media we have identified are:
1- Low self-esteem: this often results from seeing what is believed is accepted by the world. E.g., thinking ladies with certain body types are more accepted by the public or you need to look a certain way to be considered beautiful. Men sometimes also feel like they are not solid enough because they are not able to flaunt money, or not as buff as some influencer on IG, or not able to take pictures with their Benz as well as they see on Social Media. Social media has the tendency of making us feel like we are not enough and maybe we have even started considering different ways to achieve that body goal or meet that social standard. We might even go as far as consuming unhealthy drugs to help us achieve the goal faster.
2- Location tracking: there are different ways to track a person online. Of course the easiest is when you allow applications to use your location. One of the most popular apps amongst young people that has this location feature is Snapchat. Location could also be tracked or known from sending streaks. Some of the streaks we send show our location and we strongly advise that streaks containing location should only be sent to close friends and family that you know. Outside snapchat, when we take pictures with GPS on, the location gets embedded in the pictures we take and forms part of the metadata. These pictures could be downloaded and analysed using freely available tools to extract the longitude & latitude (i.e., location) that the picture was taken. Bear in mind this location recorded could be your home, school, or any other place you visit or pass through regularly.
3- Contamination of mind-set/ideology: one would be blind to fact if they said they did not know there are so many toxic and wrong opinions being spread on social media. The sad part is some of these toxic views or opinions come from some of our favourite ‘influencers’ or celebrities. They tend to forget (young) people look up to them and even some adults that do not have a mind of their own (sadly) take these toxic pieces of advice as gospel. We hope you know that a blue tick does not necessarily mean ‘wisdom’ or ‘common sense’. We will leave this at that.
4- Depression: this often results from consistent and continuous comparison (CCC) syndrome. CCC syndrome is a term coined by CyberPhorm and we think it is a real disease and those who suffer from this need urgent treatment before they lose themselves totally. It is not everything we see on social media that is true. Social media is make-believe. Unhappy couples pose as happy couples, scammers pose as successful people or motivational speakers telling you some unrealistic things and you begin to wonder why the same method they talked about is not working for you. They also make you think you need to have attained a certain level before a certain age. Come off it! No two people in this world are running the same race; run your race and let others run theirs. If your mates online or offline are buying the latest iPhone or the Patek Philippe watches, good for them but do not compare yourself because you do not know if they have stolen those items, or acquired them through fraud. At CyberPhorm, we believe everything works out in due time if only you are patient enough to put in the work. Be careful, don’t be in a hurry. Shortcuts can cut your life short!
This is continued in the next post. Feel free to comment any other symptoms of unhealthy social media you know.
An interesting take on social media and our sense of self. Nice
Thank you Olanrewaju, we are glad you found it interesting. Remember to share.
Quite an interesting piece that captures the worsening dilemma of social media users. It’s high time all actors got responsible in the use and deployment of social media. The tech companies should be more intentional about training their algorithms to respect individual privacy and will, and not endlessly seek to commercialize the attention that we devote to social media. Individuals should also be aware of the threats posed by these platforms on our will as users, even as this article highlights. We should take control of them and give no chance for that otherwise.
Thanks for this piece.
100%! Thank you Boluwatife for your reflective comment, and sound points made. It’s so sad now that some apps leave you very little or no choice but to accept certain terms and agreement, else you cannot proceed to use the app.
That term CCC Syndrome resonates with a lot of people. Cannot wait for the continuation…
100%! Here is the continuation Fave: http://cyberphorm.com/unhealthy-use-of-social-media-contd-negative-implications/.
Hope you share 🙂
Thank you for the eye opener. Its quite sad that if we don’t take appropriate precautions now, we’ll look back on our society decades from now and wish we did when social media was in its infancy.
Nothing but facts spoken Jide
Good job on this. This is all true about the unhealthy use of social media. Waiting for the next post…..
Thanks Tibzy, you can find the continuation here http://cyberphorm.com/unhealthy-use-of-social-media-contd-negative-implications/.
And our suggestions on developing safer online habits here: http://cyberphorm.com/summary-tips-on-using-social-media-more-healthily/.
we hope you share as well.
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