The Effect
Everyday we see what social media can do in our world. There are good and bad things about social media.
During COVID-19 in particular, we have seen a new social media platform rise, Tik Tok has become popular among young influencers and we are seeing their lives changing in an instant.
Especially during COVID-19, we see a new social media platform, Tik Tok become popular and many young influencers' lives get turned upside down. A month after becoming famous, they are packing their bags and moving to LA to live the life. This is a perfect example of how social media can possibly change your life for the better.
In other situations, social media sometimes will make us believe everything we see is fully accurate, which is what we discussed last week. Not all pictures or videos may be real and sometimes social media can also take you into a rabbit hole.
Trying to be Perfect
Because of social media, our generation sees beautiful women and men on social platforms and will instantly feel insecure or less confident. With social media being constantly present in our lives, we see a drastic downward shift in adolescence, self esteem and more.
McClean, a Harvard Medical School Affiliate has an article on how social media physically affects people's health and causes issues daily. As stated in the article, ‘According to the Pew Research Center, 69% of adults and 81% of teens in the U.S. use social media. This puts a large amount of the population at an increased risk of feeling anxious, depressed, or ill over their social media use.’
Manipulation Taking a Toll
As we start to see from the paragraphs above, social media can truly take a toll and will continue to affect people's health. There are ways to control what we see or hear but it is difficult and the least we can do is to try and find a way to responsibly report on manipulated images on social media.
An article from First Draft specifically highlights how journalists around the world can responsibly report manipulation on the internet. The author, Victoria Kwan shares an image teen vogue published and an image of the same photo doctored showing Gonzalez tearing the United States Constitution.
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| Picture source: First Draft and Phillip Picardi |
It is extremely alarming that someone can manipulate a picture and switch the entire meaning. It just goes to show you how easy manipulation on the internet can truly be.
Showing images of manipulation is not to scare people away from social media but it educates all of us and shows us how to be aware of these situations.
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