Who else remembers life before Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter?
It has been more than a decade since the mass-proliferation of Facebook, and now I dare you to think of anything that has shaped mass culture as much as Facebook and social media did.
The way we communicate has changed. Due to social media, the victory of Donald Trump has been facilitated. It has also distorted our reality and has elicited an addiction-like response in our brain.
The list of all the ways that social media has changed our perception is very long, but there is one thing that shouldn’t go unmentioned – it has turned us into a generation of self-obsessed narcissists.
From deceiving selfie poses that make insecure people feel more confident and more attractive to designing your Instagram and Facebook profile so it appears that you’re living a better life and having more fun than you really are – social media has turned us into attention-seeking junkies, foolish and superficial people.
There is a whole generation of people competing against each other for likes, followers, retweets, and whatever another form of approval is out there rather than any kind of collective goal.
There are plenty of people who use social media as a means of projecting an idealized picture of themselves onto the world – a picture of someone they wish could be than who they really are.
This trend has gone beyond taking too many selfies and the need to treat every action as an opportunity for hashtagging. Every major or minor life event has become a chance for posting a self-promoting content.
Just think about the absolutely ridiculous phenomenon of many people wishing a happy birthday to their parent even though their parent doesn’t have a Facebook account.
Why they do it? Because they’ve realized that sharing makes them feel validated which feels good to them and boosts their confidence.
Don’t get me wrong, my purpose is not to shame people for what feels instinctive to them and it is usually done unconsciously. Instead, I want to raise awareness of these social media giants that have quietly rewired our brain and made us a generation of self-absorbed narcissists.
And you know, registration is free, but long-term use undoubtedly comes with a price.
What do you think?
