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Living the reel life

October 4, 2024 at 4:00:00 PM

Susanna Huang '27

Social media has become the primary way to communicate, connect, and interact with people living all around the world. One commonly used application, Instagram, offers an online platform for sharing pictures, reels, and streams, and it is wildly popular among teenagers. 

Unfortunately, this connectivity can do both harm and good to adolescents and young adults. On Instagram, you see endless images of girls with flawless makeup and designer clothing in front of expertly designed lighting—aspirational images that curate life into unattainable perfection.

Participating in online trends has become the new way of “keeping up with the Joneses.” People crown influencers as idols and copy their dress, style, and aesthetics. These influencers attract millions of viewers—earning money by showcasing their unreal lifestyles. Social media incentivizes viewers to become “better” versions of themselves, but in doing so, influencers also pull people into infinite loopholes of self-doubt. 

We all have insecurities about ourselves, be it our appearance, body shape, or that one quirky feature. Because we all have such worries, looking at examples of seemingly perfect online lives can exacerbate our deepest fears. Viewers may ask themselves: “Why don’t I look like that?” Social media can lead people to question their worth, as well as those qualities that make them unique, creating mental health problems due to anxiety.

However, social media won’t change anytime soon because it makes too much money for too many people. Companies use algorithms to make viewers stay on their platforms for as long as possible to insert ads to generate revenue.

As social media has infiltrated our lives, its harms increasingly outweigh its benefits. 

Social media raises an important legal question: can we limit the harm caused by influencers by regulating what they can post?  If so, would that violate the right of freedom of speech? But surely, adolescents’ mental health is important too; and so, where should we draw the line between free speech and the intentional dissemination of misleading images or misinformation to young audiences? 

Influencers feed on our anxieties to gain popularity. Moreover, many posts on social media are not fact-checked and come from less credible sources. To ensure an open environment for creative posts, social media platforms should examine and check the content before submission; social media platforms should patrol the information being spread, ensuring the reliability of information online. The examination should come before the post is uploaded, not just as an afterthought. 

Copyright 2024

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