How many times have you used social media per day? How many times per hour? Per minute? The creation of social media in the early 2000s brought a new era to light. Think about it, when did you first notice people using social media, checking their phones? If you are an Igen (1995-2012) or Generation Alpha (2010-2024) then you have definitely seen someone using their phone, stuck to their screen like a leaf stuck to a tree.
I don’t remember when social media came out exactly, nor do I remember how it suddenly became so popular. What I do remember is the day the pandemic started and how social media impacted the way of living for the next few years.
I was in fourth grade at the time and had just sat down in my seat, right next to the beanbags when my teacher walked in. “Stomp, stomp, stomp” Suddenly everyone was exploding with questions, kids were asking “What is going on?”, “Will we have school?”, “What is COVID?” I didn’t know how to take it all in at one time in one moment.
When school had finished later that day, chaos ran rampant throughout the schoolyard. I went running to my mom and asked her, “What’s going on ?”My mom told me to just wait, once we were in the car I asked again, she told me to wait. Once at home she explained that there wouldn’t be anymore school, anymore reunions with friends, anymore soccer or basketball, till this situation was solved. At the time I didn’t really get it, I thought it would last a few days at most, instead it lasted two years with online school. I was often confused, bemused, and bewildered throughout this period of time. They say it was two years, it felt more like a million years, endless use of screens, no meeting or greeting with anyone.
I remember going into my zoom classes and hearing kids talk about who posted what or what happened. All I thought was, How the heck do they know all this? That same day I asked my mom about how they were communicating like this, what she let me know confused me more. “They are using social media.” I had heard about it, seen my parents using it, but didn’t get how kids would use it. I knew that most adults used it, bringing up questions like, ‘What issues come up with this?’, ‘What does social media help with?’ and many more beyond that.
As the time passed, I heard my friends talking about different reels, different videos, talking about what they had talked about last, while I didn’t get what they were talking about. To balance this out, I decided to have zoom calls, seeing as it worked during class I didn’t get how it could go wrong.
Now five years later and I am writing this, looking back and seeing how many friends got exposed not only to communication with friends, in the way that I did through zoom, but also to commercials, ads, and much more, impacting how they would interact with others.
If someone had told me that I should have gone on social media, at the time I would have done it, but now, seeing how people were reacting to the pandemic, all the situations, all the uses for social media, I would decide to not use it.
To this day I still don’t use many social media pages, but the importance here isn’t more about the diversion of people from communicating with friends to watching endless reels, the importance is how people connect. For me, it went fine using zoom, for those kids using social media, maybe it went well for them. The importance and emphasis here though is that every person is different, that social media has learned to adapt to each individual, for either good or bad.
Just pause and think about it, how many people use social media daily? How many per month? Per year? If someone spends a few minutes out of their day looking at social media, it may not seem like much, but if you add up how much time per week they do this, it could add up to more than an hour or two. With close to fifty-two weeks per year there could be about sixty hours of social media, and that’s just if you use it a few minutes every day.
Social media comes with good benefits; it provides a structural system in which one can communicate with friends instantaneously. It can also provide means of creating friend groups with others, fostering a stronger idea or form in which all can have some sort of connection and aren’t completely alone. One can learn more about cultures, and even current news events so long as the sources are trustworthy.
These are issues that come up though, what is trustworthy and how do you know if it is trustworthy. What does it even mean? Does it mean something is trustworthy if it is true? Or does it mean it is trustworthy if something is accurate?
This is the one of many issues found in the digital world, along with misleading information, and manipulative data.
For example, one of the influencing factors causing political polarization in the world is oftentimes social media, at least, that is according to Polarization, Democracy, and Political Violence in the United States: What the Research Says. In fact, it states that polarization in modern history is driven by social media mainly as it causes people to only look at a certain “thing” in their feed. The algorithm created to allow people to watch what they enjoy has turned into a weapon making people only watch one type of feed, only hear one type of opinion, often turning people to only hear one side, not the whole spectrum.
Social media can also be used in a more negative way through the comments and cyberbullying. How many times have you seen someone turn on their phone and stay in blank silence?
How many times have you turned around and seen a friend staring at their phone with a mix of regret, anger, sadness, or fear?
I remember the many countless times I remember seeing a friend or known person react, I remember seeing my one friend freeze and cry out with joy at seeing how many followers started to follow him. I remember when another friend looked at his phone and just stood there, staring at it, not reacting, not breathing, as if a remote control had come and paused the show he was in.
Social media has been used for many different reasons. It has been used in many different ways. The emphasis in this is that social media has learned to adapt to the individual user, to adapt to them, for good, or for bad. What we have to do as people, is to learn how to live a good life without any division or polarization, created by these communication platforms.
I remember that not that long ago, I was with my family, we were all just hanging out on Sunday afternoon. The sun was shining through the window, the breeze just starting to pick up, I remember this very clearly, and it still makes me feel somewhat haunted for what would come. My mom was talking about Yo-Yo-Ma, a famous cello player, and suddenly on her phone came up a series of videos of Yo-Yo-Ma playing the cello. At first I wasn’t sure if this was a coincidence; I wasn’t sure if it had anything to do with what we were talking about. We continued talking although we were all now disturbed as to what occurred with all of us puzzling constantly over how this could be the case.
I saw this again not that long ago when I went to hang out with some of my friends. I don’t remember why but someone made a comment about cats. All of the sudden cat reels started coming up on my friend’s phone. I left home very confused and wondering: How on Earth is it possible that the phone can tell what we are talking about?
My two conclusions that I drew from this were that since my friends and family look at these topics on social media, it was just already a part of the system and it just kept on pulling up these videos at random times. My other conclusion was one that I found interesting and not so unrealistic, this was that our phones have a system in which they can overhear what we are talking about and use this information to produce reels, or videos with what you are referring to.
Social media has been used for many different reasons. It has been used in many different ways. The emphasis in this is that social media has learned to adapt to the individual user, to adapt to them, for good, or for bad. What we have to do as people, is to learn how to live a good life without any division or polarization, created by these communication platforms, in society. Social Media in a way has started dividing people in different ways, feeding them one thing. We as people are better, we know what it means to be human, we know not to spread misinformation, we know all of this. So why do we do it? That is the real question that is ever prominent these days that social media has taken over the lives of people.
Leave a Reply