On growing up with social media
We all know what it’s like to grow up on social media. It’s a hallmark of being a part of Generation Z. I have lived in Los Angeles, the home of basically every Insta influencer and celebrity, for my entire life. I have seen the worst of the worst, and know just how harmful the impact of social media can be.
Social media is a huge part of living in Los Angeles, especially as a teenage girl. My parents didn’t allow me to have any social media accounts until I was in high school, so I am definitely an outlier in that sense. Since I was so late to the social media game, I never really got into it, which is something I always thank my parents for. However, watching my peers who grew up on social media in middle school, and then seeing the direct effects of starting social media so young was, for lack of better words, shocking.
There were so many times that my friends would ask me to hang out just so we could “take pictures.” We would literally meet up, take pictures and edit them, and then go home. I watched as my friends obsessed over likes and follows, or as they would debate for hours over what to caption their picture, or what time of the day they should post in order to maximize their likes.
I noticed how my peers who grew up on social media and were constantly bombarded with influencers and models, would spend so much time Facetuning their picures and nit-picking over every single one of their features. It wasn’t even just that they wanted to simply smooth out their skin or whiten their teeth — they felt that their shoulder needed to be edited to look smaller, or their eyelashes needed to be darkened, or their legs needed to be stretched to look longer.
I remember in high school, everyone would compliment my friends on how good their instagrams were, and how they always seemed to look so perfect in photos. Of course, the reality was that not only were everyone’s pictures heavily edited, but nearly all of my friends had developed eating disorders as a direct result of their social media obsessions. I watched helplessly as my friends would basically starve themselves before a party so that they would look “good” in pictures that they would post on social media.
What I’m trying to say is that there is a cost to everything, and with social media, there is a huge one. Of course, it isn’t all bad, and social media can definitely be used as a tool for good, but often it is not. I have seen the devastating effects of social media obsession, and it’s important to know that what you see on your screen is so, so far from the truth. To be frank, it is literally all fake. And if you aren’t able to see how facricated social media often is, then it’s easy to get sucked into the black hole of comparison, self-criticism, and low self esteem. Be safe out there.
