Social media allows us to put our best foot forward, and while that is generally a good thing, it can end up distorting reality a bit. How many times have you heard people say, “I’m so sick of going on Facebook and reading about so-and-so’s perfect life!” It seems that social media has convinced us that some people have perfect, fun-filled lives, while we’re left to struggle and toil away our lives. Of course, this is a distortion of reality. No one lives in perfect bliss- not even wealthy people. Just look at any celebrity drama column and you will see that being rich doesn’t improve your quality of life; it just improves the quality of your vacations.
Wasted Time
Another downside of social media usage is the massive amount of time it can swallow up while you are not paying attention. In the grand scheme of things, responding to comments, sharing memes, and reading our friends’ trivial arguments online are not that important. Thus it is probably a good idea to limit the time we spend on these activities. After all, no one wants to look back on their life and find that they earned 1,000,000,000 twitter followers, but have nothing tangible to show for their lives. We simply must keep things in context and remember that a screen does not contain our entire world, but rather a tiny fraction of it.
While we are on the subject of keeping things in context, lets consider the next potential downside of social media: statements being taken out of context. Yes, it’s amazing to be able to communicate with people who are physically nowhere near you, and it’s something for which to be grateful. However, communication can only be so expressive in text form. How many times have you waited for an online response from someone while making assumptions like, “are they ignoring me?” When conversations take place virtually, there is plenty of room for interpretation, most of which is subjective.
Dealing with People
Social media is a virtual version of what happens around us each day. So unfortunately, the same problems that exist in real life carry over to social media. We can keep in touch with family and schedule meetups with friends, but we also have to deal with the rudeness of strangers. Ignorance, arrogance, anger, and just about every other misdirected attitude someone can throw at us will show up on social media. In fact, it will probably be much worse, as there is more anonymity and distance online, which gives people a false sense of courage.
Again, just as in real life, the importance of free will comes into play. We can decide what websites we want to spend time on and with whom we spend that time with. In most cases we can even “block” difficult people out of our experience (something that I often wish they’d invent for real life).
Your Image
Remember the days when your job interview ended when you walked out of the office? Those days are certainly over, as more and more employers have begun scoping us out on social media. We have complete control over what we say and how we portray ourselves, but it’s not something that is always on our minds. Those who are a little less diligent about their image may end up giving a bad impression without even realizing. Personal views, biases, attitudes, complaints. All of these things can cause employers to second guess your abilities and your professionalism.
Social media may also force you to decide on which “you” you’d like to present to the world. Presenting the proper “you” to the proper people is something that plays out naturally in the real world, but can get a bit dicey on the Internet. Do you really want your colleagues seeing how much boxed wine you chug on the weekends? Or your precious aunt Wilma? Or on the flip side, do you really want your colleagues seeing you exchange xoxo’s with aunt Wilma? Obviously these are benign examples, but more revealing information can easily surface.
Your Exes
This one is a no-brainer. Social media takes breakups and complicates them a little bit further. You might have to take down photos or even delete that person from your accounts if things didn’t end well. And if you were deranged/optimistic enough to list your relationship publicly on Facebook, you then must cancel the relationship, which alerts your entire social circle with a triumphantly awkward notification.
Think about breakups before the Internet, which likely required a quick scan around the house to remove gifts, pictures, or other stinging reminders of your old significant other. Basically, social media just increases your clean up time- and thus your sobbing time.
Conclusion
The usefulness of social media, as with most things, depends on the maturity of the individual using it. Anything can be abused or misused, and social media is a primary example. Instead of a thoughtless indulgence, we can use social media for what it was originally intended- meaningful networking and socialization.
