Is social media the influence?

Social media has become into an important part of today’s society, affecting how people communicate, engage, and see other people. It effect goes far past entertainment and connecting, messing with a lot of people’s lives, espeically their behavior, attitudes, and ways of thinking. Social media has a huge impact on people’s self-image and identity. Platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat let people create and share images of their life, but often show an happy version of life. This view of portraying our lives with pictures can lead to exaggerated perceptions of beauty, success, and happiness, creating people to feel not perfect and create low self-esteem in people who believe they don’t fit social standards.Social media platforms make people fall into the need for comparing. People are constantly shown updates from other people, showing their achievements, expensive items, and experiences. The constant posting of these things leads to comparison which can create people to feel jealous, resentment, and unhappiness as people compare their own lives to the beautiful ones people showcase online. It can have a negative impact on mental health and well-being, causing people to get anxiety, stress, and even loneliness.Social media allows for the quick upload of information and ideas. While this can help create relationships and educate people about important issues, it also adds the challenges of false information and unhealthy behavior. Social media platforms and the algorithms are meant to select content that matches with users’ likes and ideas, creating areas where people are only shown information that is from their previous searches. This can end up in the spread of false or misleading information, which affects peoples thinking and previous thoughts and feelings. Social media has changed how people get news and information, making people not check for accuracy and taking the information face on. The growth of user-generated content and people allowed to write whatever they want has created a new way for information being shared, allowing people with an wifi to share their ideas with anyone who can see. But as people and companies fight for attention in the world of social media, false information, and clickbait have been created because of these social media platforms. Social media has a big impact on people’s lives, affecting our views, ideas, and even behaviors in many ways. Its impact goes beyond the platforms of online interactions, affecting all aspects of todays society. So a result, it is important for people to look at social media with an open mind and question the information they are being presented with, making sure to not just take what they see and run with it. But also making sure to realize you can’t compare yourself to the false realities being presented.