“The Good and the Bad: How Social Media Affected Me as a Gen Z Individual”
In this modern era where technology is continuously evolving and progressing towards a more technologically advanced future; a more digitally inclined society that allows us to transcend the physical and geographical boundaries between people, there is bound to be a downside alongside all the convenience and entertainment it has given us. The cons are primarily experienced in social media websites/apps since the majority of the people on earth are using at least one social media website/app. We can all agree that social media has brought us a lot of benefits that have made our lives more convenient and entertaining. Through social media, we socialize with other people, such as our friends and family members from different parts of the globe. We also use it to be informed of our community’s latest happenings and news. Even companies and various sectors of the government are using social media not only to inform the people of their activities and latest endeavors but also to promote and make themselves known to the world. Furthermore, educators use social media to inform the students of the schedules, activities, and other information about their classes essential for their education. Most educational institutes around the country have practiced this since the beginning of the pandemic. Despite all the benefits that social media brought to us, we can’t say that it is a good thing since the more we use social media, the more we are drawn to it, making us addicted, which can ruin not only our physical and mental health but also the relationships and bonds that we have cultivated in real-life.
As individuals who are part of Generation Z, we can all agree that today’s generation is the best so far because we get to experience the most advanced technology humanity has ever seen and because of the internet and social media. Social media makes our lives very convenient and entertaining, but there are a lot of negative things going on behind the seemingly perfect services it provides. In the documentary, social dilemma, we have been informed and enlightened of the deceit and manipulation these social media companies are doing behind the scenes. They have been continuously improving their services to attract more attention from us and maximize our usage so that they can earn more money from advertisers that want our attention. We believe that it is okay if the way they maximize our usage is ethical and won’t affect our mental health, but the algorithm is providing the users with manipulative and inciting content that is made to cause chaos amongst us. The developers of these websites/apps knew very well that some content in their platform is misleading and propaganda, but they don’t do anything about it since these kinds of content are more attention-gathering, which in turn earns them more profit. These kinds of content can ruin how we perceive the reality of how our society works and how things are going on throughout the globe, the way we think of ourselves, and our sense of recognition. Various images and videos of men and women are circulating throughout social media, promoting unrealistic standards of beauty. This kind of content distorts our knowledge of beauty, making us think that if we are different from those standards, we are not beautiful, and we have to change ourselves to pass those unrealistic standards. Social media also turns most of the Gen Z users into “clout chasers”. Clout chasers are the people that have experienced some sort of fame in their lives, which made them feel a sense of achievement for themselves. This experience made them hungry for attention from the public, which also made them hungry for fame since they wanted to experience that sense of achievement once again. These behaviors that are caused by social media show how strong the influence of social media is towards its users, that it distorts how we perceive reality and manipulates our emotions. That’s why we should all be responsible when we use social media so that we can avoid these things from happening. We should thrive to become media and information literate since becoming one makes us more immune from the manipulation of these websites/apps. We might not be entirely immune, but at least we will be aware of what’s going on behind the scenes, which we believe can help us discipline ourselves and limit our usage. Even if it is hard, we should at least exert an ounce of effort for the greater good, doing it one step at a time until we reach our end goal.













