Social Media Influence

Social media is a topic that has a lot of meaning when it comes to influence. Social media is one thing that people of all ages struggle to not fall under the influence of and become addicted to. In fact, the average American checks their phone 352 times a day! It was estimated that 47% of America’s total population are addicted to their cell phones, this includes the use of social media platforms. Social media can be used for helpful/good resources such as google, maps, calculator, calendar, etc. But, I am not here to talk about why social media is a good thing.

I think it is safe to say that all teens have been influenced by social media in some way, shape, or form. Social media platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, and Tiktok have all created a way for teens to be rebellious. In my experience with social media as a young teen, it was the worst influence in my life. It gave me a belief that I was cool in some way, I was going against my parents wishes and what I was doing/engaging in wasn’t going to affect me. But, I was terribly wrong. I lost many things to the use of social media. I lost my family’s trust, my friends, made two of my highschool years miserable, I had a lot of regret, and I hated the person I had become. My parents always questioned what they had done wrong, but it was never their fault. I was too young and clueless to see how badly social media’s influence was on me until what I had was gone.

I was negatively affected by the use of social media about two years ago, but until now I had no idea how much it could change a person. I let the thought of being cool overlook the real truth to what is being masked through the screen of my phone. Social media glamorizes bad ideas and it poisons the minds of our youth and promotes defiance in so many different ways. As a person who lost everything she looked up to and the trust from the people she loved the most,  that social media is nothing but fake news and wrongly displayed. I learned that people without social media are a lot more successful, and that they have more time to do things that will, in the long run, only help them and not hurt them. I have completely changed who I was two years ago. I am future-focused, determined, and well-educated. I can safely say that I am on the right path to a better, brighter future.

Modern day society depends on social media platforms for everything that goes on around us. Take highschool students for example, most students depend on platforms like Instagram to tell them what the theme of a sports game is going to be. How are the kids who don’t have social media supposed to know what the theme of the game is going to be if they don’t have Instagram? Why can’t the school provide the theme? Why does the internet determine everything that goes on around us? These questions all have many answers and sadly it all depends on everyone’s personal opinions. It is simply that social media creates a barrier between the ones who believe in oldschool, well-educated beliefs that social media is cruel to the minds of people of all ages and those who think that social media is the best thing in the world and that nothing wrong/bad could ever come to those who use it.

I have had my fair share of life lessons. My huge reality check, when it came to social media, was that nothing is as great as it may seem. Social media is fake. It is put in place to try and trick people into seeing what is fake over what is true. When I see the world today, I think of the movie Walle. Walle is about a robot who spends everyday collecting trash and picking up the earth. He is creating a better place to live, while up in space there are people who can’t walk on their own, and they depend solely on technology in order to survive. This is how I imagine our world turning into, because addiction to social media and our cell phones are all a must have item in the world we live in today. It is sickening to see that people would rather text someone than speak to them face-to-face.

Social media can have many negative effects on people of all ages, including myself. People of our modern day society need to learn how to function without the use of technology, social media and the internet. People need to see the truth to what this world consists of and not just believe everything they see or hear on the internet. In conclusion, I firmly believe that social media is a bond breaker and not a bond maker.