Does social media cause isolation? Such a simple question to answer, or at least you think at first glance and first thought. Sure there are tons of reasons why people use social media such as: sharing family vacation photos with relatives, constantly wanting approval from others, finding friends and things that help you through everything, or just simply distracting themselves. First off is how it allows people to find friends and things that help them through everything. In our world today some things people enjoy doing are frowned upon.
But with social media you can find the people that enjoy those things as well and you can connect with them. That’s one of the good things about it. Someone might be picked on or bullied for liking certain show or because they read a lot and don’t like sports in a school that is centered around and only appreciates and shows approval towards those who do. Maybe it’s the way they dress, the things that they’ve been through and done and they have no one who wants to help them with those problems.
Maybe they’re searching for that comfort they can’t find in everyday life in just the bit of the world that’s around them. Imagine being a teenage girl and there’s a boy you extremely like and despite all of your friends telling you he is no good and he’s a pig, you still want him. He notices, he acts, he plays you, treats you like nothing but a toy. You had no past relationships and he does something that you aren’t willing to do, he forces you. Everyone around you doesn’t believe you they believe him because he’s popular.
That must that mean he’d never lie and you wanted it he says. Everyone decides to nickname you Slut. But if no one believes you in the real world, and no one will offer a helping hand or advice, what do you do? You Google rape victim stories, awareness, and help. You find a social media website where previous victims come together to help one another. You feel so relieved, and you don’t even care that nobody in your school likes you anymore. You have new friends, better friends, understanding friends. Next is how social media can affect your self-image.
Every time you go on social media such as Instagram you see beautiful women and handsome men. Then you look at yourself and you think why am I not like that, why do I not look like them. But you forget to remember and you forget to look carefully. That woman’s lips are fake, her eyelashes are fake, and parts of her body are fake. You don’t realize that the only reason she seemed so beautiful is because she had on a mask of someone who wasn’t really her. You can hide a lot with makeup and plastic surgery, but you can’t hide a terrible personality.
The men the boys see with the big muscles and who get all the girls they think I want to be like him. But they shouldn’t. There’s nothing wrong with not having muscles, there’s nothing wrong with not getting all the girls. Half of them use women, they don’t care about them they’re just using them for their little manipulative game, and women do this too. You don’t need to be them, you need to be you. Just being yourself is better than any amount of makeup, plastic surgery, muscles and girls or guys you get. Everybody thinks they’re famous when they get 100,000 followers on Instagram and 5,000 on Twitter. ” – Meek Mill.
This is so true especially in today’s world where all people seem to care about is how many followers they have. Because apparently the more you have the better you are. Which is NOT true. Someone with 300 followers and someone with 3,000 followers if they’re compared who do you think people would think are better? The 3,000 followers one right? And that’s the sad part because just because that person has to 3,000 doesn’t mean they are any better.
The person with 300 might do charity work, they spend all of their time helping others and so they don’t post as much meaning they don’t gain more followers. The person with 3,000 posts a selfie everyday captioned something like “OMG just got my hair done” when really it’s the same hairstyle just combed to the other side. People look at that and they’re like man I want 3,000 followers but why? It’s not like those people are your friends, or do things for you. Lastly is that social media provides a distraction from real life.
It sometimes distracts us from doing the things we should do which isn’t exactly a good thing. But, it also distract us from things we don’t want to know and don’t want to realize. Terrible things happen every day. We just don’t want to see those things. We would rather believe that the world is perfect in every way then do something about the things we know are problems, the things we know shouldn’t be happening but we don’t have the guts to step up to control them. As I mentioned earlier with the story of the rape victim.
She was looking for comfort in a different place which is good and she found it, but there are tons other different things. People are raped, mentally and physically abused, killed, casted away and broken down, or even tortured. But, we use social media to distract ourselves so we don’t need to realize that these things happen and our “pretty, perfect, little” world. And the people that these things happen to, where do you think they go? Where do you think they look to get away from the truth? What do you think happens when an extremely homophobic father find out his only son is gay?
He calls him a disgrace that he’s no longer a part of their family, he brings them shame, and then father removes his belt and lashes the boys back with it. All because he couldn’t accept the fact was his son likes boys, and every day when the boy came home he would endure more beating as his father yelled “are you still gay? ” and more things I don’t wish to mention. He would tell his son “ If you tell anyone I’ll kill you, and no one will care because you are just another faggot who people wish to see strung up in a tree and beaten to death anyway.
No one likes you and no one will ever love you”. So this boy distracted himself from his terrible life in that house by drawing and writing stories and posting them on social media. Though he received criticism there was more love for his work than hate. And that made him think he had a purpose in life and that if he could make these people happy, then life was all still worth it. In conclusion no I don’t believe that social media causes isolation. It helps people find friends, and help for certain situations and it allows people to relieve their stress, and express emotions in creative way.
The stories or examples I used in this are actual true things that have happened. No they didn’t happen to me but I do know these people personally and if it weren’t for social media than I never would have met them. And I know if I wouldn’t have been there for them than something far worse would have and could have happened to them. They have told me that I helped them in more ways that I can even imagine. Social media does not cause isolation, it causes much need distractions and creates bonds and friendships.
