One of the biggest issues that came out of my generation’s technological revolution regards the use of social media. While it can be a very helpful tool some of the time, I would argue that most of the time the bad aspects outweigh the good. Here are some of the reasons why we need to rethink how much time we spend on social media and what we use it for.
3: Misinformation and conspiracy theories
This issue has been brought up a lot over the last two years, especially when it comes to topics like vaccines or masks. In fact, social-media sites like Facebook or Twitter have become little misinformation toxic dump sites. No, cow deworming pills don’t cure COVID and, no, vaccines are not part of an criminal conspiracy to implant tracking microchips in your body. It’s bad info like this that is hurting us more than helping, so what I propose we do is turn off our social media and listen to professional scientists and medical doctors that know what they are doing instead of the people online who think up this nonsense.
2: Hacked social-media accounts
This may not make the news a lot but hackers often target Facebook accounts and, unfortunately, some of them do manage to steal just enough info to severely mess up your life. These days, all the right hacker needs is your name and a picture of you (which Facebook is all too kind to provide) to know where you live, where you’re at all hours of the day, and, worst of all, your banking information. Sure, you can argue that that is why you use fake names on your account, but that won’t stop the friend who took your picture accidentally linking to your profile in a post. It might sound old-fashioned, but maybe it’s time to totally rethink things: the best way to avoid this happening is by using a hand-held camera to take those pictures and getting them professionally developed instead of posting them on Facebook or other social media. This will help keep you safe online, as well as keeping your friends and family who you take photos of safe as well.
1: Online bullying
Since Facebook’s inception (and the ensuing social-media phenomenon it created), bullies—from the schoolyard and beyond—have taken control of this tool to abuse their targets more efficiently. This is extremely bad because it’s harder to know who and where the offending verbal insults are coming from compared to a bully who walks up to you and takes your lunch or pushes you. This is because they can log in to any public computer that many people use every day and post their insults under an anonymous name and be almost completely untraceable. If they’re skilled enough they could even get into their target’s bank account and steal from their account. This is a serious threat to the security of our children, and that’s why I’m saying that this is the number-one reason why we should work on ending our reliance on social media.
These examples, and many more like them, prove the need for humankind to step back and think about our usage of social media and the influence that it has over our everyday lives.