Social media = Toxic

I believe that social media, overall is having a negative impact on society. While social media is useful for growing small businesses, connecting with friends and family, and even for school, it can also be seen as a detriment to society as whole. The power of social media is sometimes undermined, seeing that the election is proof that what goes online can change or even reaffirm ideas. In the Wired article by Virginia Heffernan, she explains that a Trump representative gives credit to Facebook for the Republican candidate’s victory. In a similar article written by Noam Cohen, Facebook claims to help expand its users relationship capacity to more than just 150 people . This marketing ploy is just that, a way for a company to attract more users with sketchy claims. I personally do have more than 150 friend on Facebook, and can say while I do  know each one, I definitely do not have a personal empathetic relationship with all 200 friends. While these social media platforms allow me to interact with my friends and serve as a great way to learn about different brands and companies, I learned to rely on it much less than I used to. Social media can slowly turn into a toxic addiction. With the endless scrolling, obsessions over other peoples lives, and constant comparisons of ourselves and others, it can really start lowering our own self esteem. I personally found myself stuck in this endless circle of comparing myself to others on social media, and took a break from it this past summer. I can honestly say that was the best time of my life, where I knew absolutely nothing about others lives, or even the news around me. I didn’t miss out on anything, and felt like my happiest self. That’s when I learned social media has done much more harm than good for me. The same can be said for kids as well, seeing that some of them have social media accounts at 7 or 8 years old . All in all social media is not what it used to be, and has turned into a numbers game, leading others to think that having more likes and followers will fulfill them in some way, when that is definitely not the case.