The Dark Side of Social Media

Is Social Media actually creating fake illusions of who we actually are?

My answer? Of course it is! We don't act how we portray ourselves on social media, or at least the majority of us don't, and why would we? We don't want to upload our negatives, our bad days, the less glamorous sides to ourselves, and I'm talking personality wise too.

Yes, there are people out there who are totally honest in who they are on social media, they talk about their bad days and open up about it and for the awareness of mental health this is GREAT! Social media is a powerful and very influential tool, if used correctly... Through the use of social media, many careers have been made, many causes have awareness raised, many people have been helped through the likes of the fundraiser pages etc. This is when social media is amazing and brilliant and connects the world on a level we otherwise wouldn't know about. 

Social Media really has its uses.

Like I've mentioned above, social media really does have an amazing way of connecting the world in a way which we couldn't have imagined many years ago. We can keep up-to-date on people we maybe lost connection with years earlier, maybe a school friend we lost touch with, now with a click of a button we can add them, follow them, subscribe to them and feel totally in touch with their reality. 

It's a great and useful tool for business owners, everything is online now. So this blog is NOT about bashing social media, used the right way it's amazing! 

Platform for bullies

But used the wrong way, by the wrong people... it can become the easiest way to bully and cyber-bully. Everyone is very easily contactable, so years ago your home was a "safe-haven" away from the "bullies", where you were surrounded by the people you love and felt safe. Now, you are contactable even when you are lying in your bed by the many means of contact, SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram... the list goes on.

So as I've said, in the hands of the wrong person social media can really damage another person. Cyber-bullying is taken very seriously now and there are now new laws on it. (If you bully anyone, you really need to take a long hard look at yourself!)

With that out of the way, lets get down to what I ACTUALLY mean!

So, I was having a discussion with a friend recently and like we have in the past, we have discussed social media and the "presence" people have on it. We have saw it first hand, people who we know personally, putting on this really imaginative and strange front to the world on social media, when we have known them differently. We've always found it very interesting and have discussed it to great lengths, hence the point of this blog post.

So it got us talking, and we noticed the amount of lies being spread online. And by lies I mean, people actually writing lies to their "followers" and pretending (or worse, believing) that what they are saying is correct.

Now most of what you read online HAS to be taken with a pinch of salt, there have been "parody" accounts and social media experiments online to show the fake-ness of some of the profiles we follow. Not only what people say, but how they look. I, myself, have witnessed people stating to be 100% natural in physique when I know them to have had cosmetic or plastic surgery (which I obviously have had myself and don't deny). It creates a false illusion for themselves and everyone around them. Do they believe their lies?

This is not fact, this is only my opinion, which you may or may not agree with. But just ask yourselves the question and the people you follow the question, are they authentic? Are they telling the truth? Social media creates this false sense of reality, we believe we "know" these people, but in my own experience, we really, really don't. We see what they want to post.

Is there a deeper meaning to social media? I believe so, yes. In my own experience and opinion, some of the people with the largest followings on social media are some of the most insecure, nasty, egotistical and narcissistic people I've ever, unfortunately, met. So why do they have this large following? Well, because what they spout to their followers and on their posts sounds really good. They don't come across narcissistic or rude, they manipulate their followers into believing this false sense of inflated ego that every like, follow and comment creates for them. 

But it goes deeper than this...

It really does! Social media has become this illusion created by many people, which they not only use now to inflate their own egos, but they now believe what they put out. I read so many things and I think "wow, what you're saying is so wrong!", but the problem occurs when these people actually believe what they're writing. 

An example I will use would be the likes of a health guru who in real life does nothing healthy, they don't follow what they say, they only upload it to make others buy into their idea of "health" or "fitness/nutrition" that they're trying to sell to them.

Another example would be someone who tells their followers how they've used the negatives in their lives to really overcome their bad days, but in reality they treat everyone around them badly.

I feel like social media has now become a bandage to those who need it most. It's a fake illusion of a reality they've created themselves because they can't stand who they truly are or where their life is. So what they do on social media, really does not correlate across the rest of their lives. Those who are truly damaged inside almost use it as a means of escape, it becomes their drug. They can't get enough.

And it is SO detrimental to those around them. 

How many of us have looked at mums on social media and think bad of ourselves because we don't "look like that" or haven't "bounced back like that" or "couldn't afford that expensive trip"? 

How many of us have looked at fitness influencers, beauty influencers, holistic coaches and thought negative about themselves?

This is exactly what I'm talking about, very few people actually have the "Instagram influencer" lifestyle, its all persona, and I get it. Some people do it for their career, some do it for an ego boost and some do it to fill the hole they have so deeply in their hearts that they won't go to therapy and get the help for.

A place for the weak

Social media has become a place where people with low self esteem can feel credible because they get a few likes on a post or have people follow them and listen to them waffle nonsense. It's become a place of false interactions, false accounts and false information. This makes them feel temporarily better, but it doesn't fix the underlying cause of their unhappiness.

Whilst the rest of us are trying to deal with the real world, we will always have people flaunting lies in our faces, as long as we let it happen. Now, before anyone thinks I'm bashing anyone with low self esteem, I'm really not, I've been there and I've done this exact thing, which is why I'm talking from experience. I've really fed into what people have said online, good and bad about me. It's only now that I'm older that I realise my worth does not lie in likes, comments, follows or whatever else. I'm the only person who truly knows me (like the rest of you, you are the ONLY person who truly knows you! Don't let anyone tell you different either!) I love myself for who I am and no one will tell me different. 

It's a scary environment for us who are raising children, I know I fear of the day my children ask to have social media. My own experiences have been both good and bad, so what way will I react when they are on it? All I know, is that I really don't want to lose my children to the depths of social media. I want them to have human interaction as much as possible, whilst its the way of the world now, and it has good uses, I really don't want them to have so many demons in the real world that they turn to social media for the fake benefit. Which is why I'm trying to create a secure attachment to them so they always know I'm there for them, they don't need the false blanket of reality when they have me.

Scapegoat

As I've said myself, I use writing as a scapegoat, to get everything down in one place and out of my head. But I keep reminding everyone that this is my opinion, you don't need to follow or accept it. With every post, all I aim to do is to get people to question things, ask themselves the same questions I've been asking myself. We will all come up with different ideas, but I like to create food for thought.

Take Care,

Meghan