Is Social Media for Idiots?
We’ve all done it. You open Facebook to check a notification, and an hour later you’ve somehow found yourself on your friend from work’s girlfriend’s brother’s profile, browsing through photos from when he went to Magaluf in 2013 with the lads. Social media is a slippery slope, and what you think is an quick and innocent Instagram scroll can easily turn into a waste of a precious 30 minutes with nothing to show for it but a thumb that’s actually starting to ache a bit. How did we get to this point? Where we spend more time with our necks at a 90 degree angle looking down at our phones rather than having a face to face chat? Or more commonly, trying to do both at the same time? Social media is eating away at our free time and we don’t even realise it.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love social media. To be honest, who doesn’t? I’m a fiend for a good Snapchat filter and Twitter is a hive of hilarious threads, but my ultimate nemesis is YouTube. I both love it and despise it at the same time, because although it provides me with a plethora of entertainment it’s also the site that just swallows my time and “just another ten minute conspiracy video” turns into 3 hours-worth of ten minute conspiracy videos and the cycle never ends. Now I do agree that YouTube has some excellent, thought provoking and engaging content, such as TED talks and podcasts, but if you’re anything like me you skip all the quality content and end up watching a 30 minute vine compilation titled ‘Vines that butter my egg roll’. It really is all about the click bait.
Not only does social media suck up alot of your time, it can also suck up your confidence. Instagram in particular is where your self esteem can really be put to the test. In a world of Kardashian’s and Tammy Hembrow’s it’s easy to get pushed into thinking you should be wearing that certain item of clothing or doing your eyebrows a certain way. It is important to remember that social media influencers are just that; influencers who are getting paid an extortionate amount of cash just to promote an aesthetically pleasing box of ‘skinny tea’ that realistically isn’t going to do anything other than leave you £20 down.
I am pretty convinced that social media is the culprit for most of my unneccessary purchases over the years, and I’m sure I’m not the only one. Why is it we think that just because someone has a couple of million Instagram followers the product they bring out is going to be any good? Let’s talk Kylie Jenner for a second. From the age of 16 she was bossing the Instagram game and causing girls from around the globe to go out and purchase MAC ‘Whirl’ lipliner as it was rumoured it was the one she used. Fast forward to now and she is the proud owner of her own cosmetic brand: Kylie Cosmetics. She nearly broke the internet when she released her first line of lip kits and many people were left disappointed when they all sold out within minutes. But when all is said and done, is it really worth spending £22 on a lipstick, £20 on custom fees and 3 weeks of waiting because it’s being shipped from America? Probably not, but do we buy it? Best believe we do! Because it’s Kylie Jenner, and if she wears it it MUST be good. This warped logic is one of the worst things about social media. You convince yourself you need this life changing product because it’s being plastered all over your feed but in reality it’s all smoke and mirrors and you got played.
…and that brings me to address the million dollar question: Is social media for idiots? I think social media is for everyone, you’re only an idiot if you let it dictate and control your life. It is important to know the difference between an innocent catch up on the latest trending Facebook videos and just wasting your time and money (on products you know you don’t need). People say it all the time, but social media is NOT real life. So crack on with yours.
Happy scrolling everyone.
With thanks to Rebecca Stovell
