Impact of Social Media

According to itstimetologoff.com, I have a healthy relationship with social media. I agree and disagree with this statement. I have lowered my social media usage to about an hour on TikTok and Instagram as well as a few minutes on Twitter (or X). I have other social media accounts like Snapchat but rarely use them. The reason I disagree with this statement is that though I am not on social media frequently, growing up with social media as we were still forming an understanding of social media impacts as a society definitely affected me. I had access to information I did not need as an adolescent such as diet fads. 

This statistic was interesting to me as it stated that 71% of people aged 18-29 use instagram compared to 48% of 30-49 year olds, 29% of 50-64 year olds, and 13% of people over the age of 65. I personally have used instagram more as I get older. I feel that this factor is affected by me moving from state to state. It is much easier to keep my friends updated of my life through instagram than any other social media platform. I am only 20 years old so I'll have to see what my usage is in ten years. 

In my opinion, social media has had an overall positive effect on society. Social media has had many negative effects on society such as the previously mentioned diet fads. However, diet culture has far preceded social media dating back to as early as ancient Greek times. Racism, bullying, and the distribution of false information, all of these existed before social media. All social media does is allow us to connect with one another and how we choose to use it determines how we impact one another. I feel that social media's ability to inform and connect globally far exceeds the foul play of bitter people. I also feel that as we continue to learn and grow with social media we can become more aware of how to avoid false information and understand that there will always be hate-filled people but that does not mean we must feed into their antics.