We are currently in the middle of an invasion, a mass media and internet invasion! Let’s be honest everybody has social media even your grandma. There are so many different platforms for social media such as Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, even YouTube is considered social media. We are in an era where media controls the world and we are completely fine with it because it doesn’t directly hurt us. A lot of people wake up every day thinking, “I wonder if my favorite influencer posted something new?” We are spoon-fed opinions that aren’t ours and our infatuation with the thought that someday we might be a social superstar but reality hits hard when bills are due and there’s no food on the table only a low 1% of people will ever reach that kind of fame. Having internet access doesn’t help either. Yes, the internet is helpful but on almost any website there are ads for different social media and different items that you don’t need but look “cool”. I find the term “influencer” insufferable because people who call themselves influencers are on a power trip only thinking of how to use followers for money and more fame. But people are fine with that until the influencer does something bad and makes a video or statement saying “sorry for doing that” knowing fully well they are only sorry because they got caught. And then a divide happens–people who accept the apology and continue enjoying the content and the people who move on to another influencer for more media. But we are the reason that this happened after all. We are so scared of the harsh reality that is life so people stopped going out and enjoying the world and gave into their daily dose of content being fed to them by people who wear a mask for money, to most influencers viewers are just a statistic a number to show their popularity to gage to an audience that they don’t care about but people are fine with that as long as they get an escape to fall back on. Yes, media can be good as well, spreading awareness for certain topics like mental health and abuse. It can give real help, but the only way to make it better is for you to act now and not wait for someone to help pick you up because there is not always someone there for you at the end of the day. It’s up to YOU to change YOUR LIFE. But we are so influenced by the media and the internet to realize that they are not getting anywhere in life or even making an impact in their communities.
About 60% of the people in the world own some kind of social media app that’s about 4.9 billion people that use social media. But there is an understanding social media helps us connect with more people and meet people who could potentially change our lives. I interviewed 10 anonymous random students to check how many hours people have spent on social media a day (these were asked after 6th period) 8 out of 10 students had over 200 hours on social media in the last 2 weeks, the most common social media were Snapchat and Instagram.
I feel yes we should have social media because of the benefits it brings but we also need to cut down on how long we use these apps. The next worry is how our younger generation will grow up having access to potentially harmful content to the adolescent brain Such as Inappropriate content that is open to all users right when they sign up I feel this is a problem that needs to be solved and soon Because our the young brain doesn’t understand right from wrong like if a kid saw or heard someone saying a curse word they would repeat is because they don’t know better but who knows what they might do when exposed to different forms of content for internet sources and on social media. Hopefully, we can fix this issue sometime in the future and help develop our younger generation in a safe environment free from false promises and unreal expectations.
