The Intricacies of Social Media
Over the years, there's been a multiplication of social media platforms. I recall Facebook being the first Social Media Platform I was ever registered on. Nowadays, they range from Twitter to TikTok to Instagram and so many more... The one thing that I've noticed about using social media is how addictive it is. Once you log out, you want to login again. But once you're logged in for say an hour, you're already bored. Bored but you can't get enough of the boredom. There's this very complicated thing that happens with each social media user. It's like with drugs or porn... I call them the intricacies of social media. I'm going to talk on 5 of them:
1. Social media turns you into an addict. You can no longer sleep well, work well, study well, or do anything well. You're always anxious to log in to view the latest. Are they Memes, Gossip Blogs, Showbiz...? Like some guy addicted to cocaine or porn, you keep wanting more of it - even though it destroys you. Even though at a certain moment, you don't use it to empower yourself.
2. Social Media has this way of making you feel insecure about yourself - so less of yourself. It takes you to the lowliest places. Since everybody on Social Media Platforms is supposedly living "La Vida Loca", or has everything already figured out or already has made it in life, it's easy for someone with a weak mind to slumber into depression - sometimes, even the tough minds can't support the pressure. So, they crumble.
3. Social Media makes you live a vain life. Your life gradually becomes one for the TL or the Gram... You want to surpass or at least equal all those cool people you see on Social Media. I almost got depressed. Seeing people become what I'd only thought of becoming in my wildest dreams, I couldn't take it. But thankfully, I sailed through. You forget your real life and focus only on this virtual reality. Friends and family come in as a close 4th to Social Media and your never-ending caprices to become an influencer or an opinion leader even in the dumbest pseudo-woke domains.
4. Social Media can make you lose belief in everything you ever believed in. The period when I almost lost my faith is this period. Logging in to read Atheists demonstrate the inexistence of God made me wonder a lot. Does God really exist? Is the earth spherical or flat? Is patriarchy really good? Those core societal values implanted in us by society, are suddenly questioned and championed and fashioned. Though it's good to unlearn everything you've learnt during your life to relearn new ones - for that's the purpose of fighting the matrix, it's hard. For sometimes, it is difficult to decipher what really is and what isn't. So we might lose belief in our beliefs...
5. Social Media is simply depressing. Depression, which is an alarming mental illness amongst adolescents, teenagers and young adults, just recently reached its crepuscule with the rate of globalization Social Media has helped bring. That's why a boy in Wuzan, China can make you have a bad day in Dschang, Cameroon. That's why you do crazy things just to get the likes that you get. And when you don't get them, you're frustrated. Life is good and Social Media never fails to show people who experience only that awesomeness of life. You wonder why your own life is so boring. Why things don't seem to work out for you like for others. You're depressed. Your friends and family don't seem to love you like the friends and family of those you meet online, love their own friend and family. Even the job you have always wanted to have will depress you when someone else has something better. Even when you get that life, you might be depressed because you thought it was going to be what you'd been envying.
These are just some of the things that I've noticed with social media users. There are a lot more. We could talk all day and night. But that's not my intention to bore you with long talking. We must know that there are a lot of beautiful advantages from Social Media. But I just can't take myself off these intricacies.
