Keeping Up With Social Media

 

Looking back to when I was in middle school, it’s hard to believe that Myspace was so popular because of the different social media accounts that are used now and how powerful they are. Myspace is still a social media website but is now based on music and isn’t anywhere near as active as it once was. The days of spending hours looking for a profile layout and deciding who was going to make the top eight friends list are gone.

Depending on which social media accounts someone uses now, they can expect to see a lot of cat pictures, fight videos, ignorant racial rants, and even porn. Not to say that everything posted is either pointless or just flat out wrong, but imagine if we didn’t have to scroll through our feeds hoping that our mothers don’t see half of the stuff on there. I can’t block all the disappointing and cruel things that go viral but that doesn’t mean I want to look at them. Some post get me instantly irritated and I wonder why anyone would share it for the world to see.

Twitter seems to do a good job of spreading important and relevant news in my opinion compared to any other site but still is run over by nonsense. Example would be just last week Kylie Jenner was trending on twitter as she always is and the reason this time was because her friend put her on snapchat after she spilled a drink on her pants. Jenner then was in the bathroom using a blow-dryer to dry it off. This trend was more popular than Flint, Michigan, where they are currently having a water crisis and goes to show you what’s important the majority of social media, celebrities.

Reality television has put a strangle hold on social media. Once someone becomes famous making a reality series about their life is the best way to catapult themselves to A-list status. Kylie Jenner just happened to benefit from her sisters and now you could argue that she is the most popular out of all her sisters. Most teenage girls want to be Kylie and spend their time on social media sharing, liking, and commenting on her pictures like it is their responsibility. This has a negative impact on her young fans because Kylie is going to be rich and famous regardless and supporting her every move does not benefit her fans in any way. In reality every time a photo of Kylie Jenner is shared it takes up the spot that could have been a picture about helping Flint.

Honestly all signs seem to be pointing in the same direction, the wrong one. Social media shouldn’t be a big popularity contest about likes and looks, it should be about the spreading of ideas to make the world a better place. The way this generation uses it, it just sets the next generation up for the same thing. We're giving kids the wrong idea of what is important.