By Sophia Gerl
5.04 Billion People. Billions of people are using at least one social media app.
It represents more than 54% of the world’s population.
Social media is a widespread digital technology that is consuming a huge amount of time in people’s lives. Especially among teenagers, the Apps TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat are really common.
If you asked any of these adolescents, they would tell you how much they’d appreciate these apps, and they could probably not live without them. You have nothing to worry about when you see it from this side. However, there are many negative effects that are not talked about enough.
Such as bullying, insecurities, wrong images or lies that are promoted. Especially, people that grew up with these apps probably have totally different mindsets and views on the world than the older generation that probably never downloaded one of these apps or were just recently affected by them.
Thinking about bullying can even destroy people’s minds and make them think that they are not good enough and have to turn their lives inside out. People start thinking about what’s wrong with them, etc. Cyberbullying can have the same effect as normal bullying. In some cases, it’s even worse, because the victims think the problem is actually themselves, and they try to change their lives in the craziest ways just to “fit in”. Also, the fact that they don’t know who is actually picking on them can lead to even more self-consciousness. Who is hating me? Why? And what if the person is right, because she is an icon in society? How should you know, when private profiles react to your posts?
In real life, you have the chance to figure out why this certain person could hate you. Is it jealousy, or is the person just lonely and bored and trying to make his life more entertaining?
The majority of influencers are showing just the good parts of their lives and not the negative ones. Hanging out with friends 24/7, going to parties, perfect skin, perfect body, perfect diet, perfect family. Just everything is PERFECT. That can make people, especially younger people, really insecure, because they could think that their daily lives are not good enough.
Why don’t I have as many friends as her? Why can’t I be so consistent and restricted in my diet? I’m not healthy enough—not brandless, not anything. So what can I do to be so perfect?
The wrong images that are shown on the internet are also dangerous and could even kill in worst-case scenarios. That could sound really far-fetched on the first look, but have you ever thought about how especially wrong body images influence teenage girls? They start to go every single way to change themselves. It can become an obsession that gets very unhealthy. They are starting dieting, working out or even doing surgical interventions. First, simple signs such as weight loss etc. are appearing. Later on effects like hair loss, massive weight loss etc. If no action is taken at this point and nobody notices the rapid change, other consequences that can possibly lead to death such as hypofunction of organs can occur.
In that instance, people have to be hospitalized.
In 2023, almost 13,000 patients were admitted to the hospital in Germany (83.2 million residents), and it’s official that every 52 minutes, at least one person worldwide dies of an eating disorder. All that just because content creators are promoting either wrong body images, unhealthy relationships to food and sport, or just their normal bodies that are advertised as “the only way to look like”.
This shows what an extreme effect social media can have on people’s mindsets.
When you take a closer look at statistics, it’s undoubtedly noticeable that the number of people with any kind of eating disorder rapidly increases.
In 2019, around 14 million people worldwide were suffering from anorexia. However, you have to keep in mind that these are just the official numbers, and there are definitely so many more cases. From 2000 to 2018, the global prevalence increased from 3.5% to 7.8%.
That was exactly the time when social media started to get more popular.
In addition to this issue, we are also really influenced by other things, such as political opinions. People actually try to spread their political campaigns and opinions on social media to increase their votes. Some even try to brainwash people.
The same action occurs with changing diets, like vegetarian or vegan. Influencers mostly try to convince people to do that by making them feel guilty. Personally, I’m really thankful for everyone who eats mostly or even completely plant-based. But I think that that’s definitely not the right way to convince people. Some even become anti-vegetarian, etc., because they feel attacked. That would definitely reach the opposite of their goals. I think it’s better to list the positive effects and show that you would do the world a great favor. Also, the number of vegetarians has definitely increased since social media has become more well-known.
Around 88 million people in the population are vegan, and 1.5 billion are vegetarians. On the other hand, just around 100,000 people globally are vegan. Unfortunately, there is no exact number of vegetarians, but the total number of vegans already shows that it has intensely increased.
Of course, not everything is about the influence of social media. But it definitely had a big influence on it. On the other hand, there are also positive effects of social media. Accounts are developing and try to promote body positivity, acceptance for everyone, etc.
In particular, acceptance of different sexualities are mostly positively promoted. Everyone has the chance to express themselves and to show the world that they are also just humans and that nothing is wrong with them.
From my observation, I can definitely tell that the older generations, who weren’t really introduced to social differences, is homophobic. Of course, I can’t speak for everyone, but there are visible indications that the rate of older people who are homophobic is higher, and young people are going on the streets to promote this to those who are not on social media.
Finally, social media unquestionably influences the way we think. Whether it’s about appearance or mindset. Before Social media was widespread, there were upsides as well as downsides. But this also applies to the generation that uses social media.
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