You Are Fake News
When you see the words ‘fake news’, you probably start to think of click-bait popping up on your social media feed, or some story in the papers the other day which got discredited the day after, or President Trump’s face swims before your eyes. You can practically hear him saying it. ‘Fake news’.
I’m here to tell you, that you, are (probably) fake news.
If you have a social media account, the chances are you are at least vaguely aware of your online image, you know what you have uploaded to your profile(s) and you don’t put any old toot up there. Why? It’s because, whether you admit it or not, you want to look good in the eyes of others. From the profile picture you set, to the daily, weekly or monthly posts you make (depending on how much of a lurker you are) you are making decisions about how you want people to perceive you; a physical image and a personality image. A cherry-picked impression of the real life you. You, but through rose coloured spectacles.
I’m not going to tell you this is a terrible thing that you shouldn’t do. After all, you should be careful what you put online these days, especially with nosy potential employers turning to social media to get a behind-the-curtain look at prospectus employees and their habits. However, when you start to see other people’s online profiles, it can be easy to forget that they do the exact same thing. In fact, according to the 2018 ‘Vacation Confidence Index’¹ 36% of people aged 18–34 admitted they deceive their social media followers with their posts, making their holidays seem greater than they were. The main reasons for doing this were to either make their followers envious, or to try and one up the other accounts they followed on social media.
This can end up giving the rather depressing impression that your life only has great bits in a sea of mediocrity, but everybody else is always having an absolutely great time. All the time. It unsurprising then, that social media users tend to have be more depressed¹. It’s important to maintain perspective when using social media, as the saying goes, ‘the grass is always greener on the other side’. Well now the other side is covered in flowers, puppies are everywhere and the old worn-down shed is covered by Potter’s cloak of invisibility. It’s hard not to be dissatisfied with your own patchy grass when faced with that.
Interestingly, despite admitting to being deceptive in their own posts online, the 2018 ‘Vacation Confidence Index’ showed that people trust posts from others they know personally on social media the most, followed by trusted brands, then media organisations and lastly posts from social media users they don’t know personally.¹ This tells us we still rely on knowing a ‘source’ personally to trust them rather than the general reputation of said source. When you only trust and add people, that you know personally off social media, on social media, the networking features of social media seem pointless.
Perhaps then, social media idea is just a big fat fakery platform, and the only way to view it is cynically. A platform for image selling. So take it with a pinch of salt, embrace the false nature of it, and use it with that in mind.
Through this lense though, its hard to see the point of social media networking. Want to share a photo? Share it to a group ‘WhatsApp’ chat. Want to keep in contact with someone? Exchange numbers. It seems to me the only niche function of social media is that it allows you to maintain a vague connection with acquaintances and snoop on people you used to know.
With the function and effects of social media coming into question, many are asking themselves whether they’re wasting their time on these networking sites. For the first time Emarketer predicted the decline of users of Facebook aged 18 to 24². With Facebook, the most widely used social media platform³, losing the interest of younger generations, social media may be showing some signs of losing relevancy. Moving on into the new year, it may be time for you to assess your use of online networking and decide if you really want to invest any more time in the endless news feeds of social media.
References:
1: Allianz. “Allianz Travel Insurance Sharing Economy Index Reveals Twice As Many Americans to Use Hybrid Market for Summer Travel in 2016.” AllianzTravelInsurance.com, www.allianztravelinsurance.com/about/press/2016/sharing-economy-index-2016.htm.¹
2: “Facebook Losing Younger Users — Emarketer Trends, Forecasts & Statistics”. Emarketer, 2019, https://www.emarketer.com/content/facebook-losing-younger-users-at-even-faster-pace.
3: Dreamgrow.Com, 2019, https://www.dreamgrow.com/top-15-most-popular-social-networking-sites/.
