Do Metrics Make Us Miserable?
Social media has such a major influence in younger generations today, especially when it comes to how we think of others and ourselves. The biggest addition to how social media can be tracked by users is through its use of metrics; metrics are a type of data that help measure the activity being taken on your media pages. There are many different types of metrics that can be used such as click through rates that show how often people look through your profile, the amount of time users spend on your page, the amount of ‘reach’ your photos can gather through being seen by users and so much more.
Metrics were usually targeted to help brands on social media track the traffic happening on their site for business purposes. Some of the most followed brands on Instagram such as Nike or Victoria’s Secret can use metrics to help evaluate which photos of their brands are gaining more attention than others.
Although metrics were usually for brands, they have become a tool that anyone can use today. Certain social media accounts such as Instagram or Twitter give users the opportunity to see metrics through personal accounts. This tool could be seen as an opportunity to gather feedback that could help someone gain more followers on their account, but what happens when people begin to treat their lives as a business? An article by Forbes states that excessive social media use can cause many deeper issues and “comparing our lives with others is mentally unhealthy”. This considers typical social media use, but when adding metrics many unforseen issues may result, such as creating self esteem issues for some people.
As more and more social media users are able to monitor the metrics associated with their profiles, more users are able to manipulate the information to gain more attention; this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it means that social media platforms such as Instagram are helping people become famous for no specific reason. Most of the top profiles on Instagram are celebrities, but there is also a large community of “social media influencers” such as Savannah Montano, Alexis Ren, and more who are using social media as a personal blog to promote themselves for commercial use.
While there’s nothing wrong with making money off social media platforms, more and more personal accounts are watching people around them become Instagram famous and using these metrics to evaluate how to grow their audience. Instead of being content with a certain photo of yourself, people are now relying on the amount of likes a photo gets to determine whether it’s actually decent. People value metrics as a way to tell if their lifestyle is good enough in the eyes of others. The Forbes article stresses that “More friends on social doesn’t mean you’re more social”.
Someone’s lifestyle can appear to be amazingly attractive over social media according to its metrics, but that may not always be the case.
A couple years ago a social media influencer, Essena O’Neil, decided to quit Instagram as she found her mental health was beginning to become negativley influenced. Essena was constantly stressing about the amount of attention she was gaining and which photos would help her become a bigger influence. Essena finally decided to go back through her posts and rewrite the caption that was honest to what had happened in order to post it.
Essena’s sudden change over social media exposed how much the pressure of being an instagram influencer and constantly reviewing metrics affected her self esteem. While metrics are a tool that can be really useful to some, there is a social consequence when it comes to different audiences. It is important to remember to have fun with social media and enjoy what you are posting for your own enjoyment, not anyone else’s.
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