Social media has an extreme presence in today’s adolescent society. Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat are the top three forms of social media. Over the summer, I discovered how obsessed some girls are about what goes onto their feed, who likes their pictures, or how many followers they have on an account. I admit, even I used to be crazy about all of this stuff. I would text all of my friends as soon as I posted a picture to go and like it. I was that girl—the one who was so incredibly thirsty for likes and never appreciated the photo or the memory itself. After realizing how obsessed I was with my phone and how I portray myself on social media, I did some digging as to why that was. The answer was fairly easy. My type A behavior results in my biggest weakness and my greatest strength: my competitive nature.Ever since I was little, my motive has always been to win. Whether it’s a board game or a relay race, winning was the most important thing to me. If I lost, let’s just say that a lot of mean words were said to the winner. As I got into my teenage years, I thought it would be fun to download a couple of social media apps on my new and hip iPhone 4s. At first, I thought nothing of my accounts; I enjoyed sharing my photos and experiences with people. In the final years of high school, social media became extremely prevalent. Every girl was obsessed with how many likes she got and how many followers she had. Some girls would even research the times when people were most active on Instagram in order to maximize their likes on photos. Crazy, right? Well, to the average teenage girl, this type of behavior is completely normal.Some girls in college are still obsessed with this type of behavior. For example, some feel that when they post a picture and it is not getting many likes, it’s a sign that people do not like them anymore or are annoyed with them. Additionally, social media is home to many model-like women, thus causing a sense of competitiveness and jealousy among women. Over the summer, I would receive messages from friends telling me how pretty a girl on Instagram was and how much they hated her. I found myself engaging in this type of behavior as well. Fortunately, I was able to snap out of it and realize how petty girls can be towards one another. Social media is not a competition. People tend to forget the purpose behind these social media apps, and that purpose is to share pictures and memories with people. While getting many likes is cool, it is not the most important facet of social media.Overall, social media in society should be toned down. People tend to rely on social media to communicate with their friends. In doing so, they forget what it is like to interact with a person face-to-face. Social media has consumed a significant part of everyday lives; it limits the amount of personal contact we have with people, leaving teens to waste their day away by staring at a phone screen.
Image Credit: Feature,1,2,3, Her Campus Kenyon