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Danny Hughes

Sarah Hughes

English 225

9 November 2020

Open Letter to Social Media Users

Dear social media users,

I implore you to listen to the facts regarding social media usage and the damage it can

do to your health. Too many people today use social media to stay in touch with each other.

When the smart phone was invented, many different forms of social media started to be

created and social media platforms became readily accessible and used more often. With the

increase in social media usage, came an increase in screen time on people’s phones. It seems

like wherever you go you will always see people glued to their mobile devices. The rise of social

media has come with many benefits, but it also has a dark side to it. Sure, apps like Instagram,

Twitter, and Snapchat allow for people to be connected twenty-four hours a day but those apps

also cause depression, spreading of false information, addiction, and much more issues. In

total, social media’s bad outcomes outweigh their good.

Like previously mentioned, not all effects of social media are bad. Because of the spread

of social media, news is released faster to people around the world. Many people in 2020 rely

on social media platforms like Twitter to get their news. Before, people would have to watch

the news on television, or read the newspaper daily to receive the news for the day. Now, news
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is breaking to the public just as it happens. If something big happens in the world, Twitter and

other social media apps are the first to know. In “It’s Not All Bad: The Social Good of Social

Media,” written on Forbes.com by AJ Agrawal, he writes, “When more people are aware of a

situation, those working to secure locations and ensure the safety of the general public can

perform their job duties more efficiently” (Agrawal 1). Agrawal is saying that when the news

reaches people faster, the public will be knowledgeable about situations that can prevent

accidents from happening and keep more people out of harm’s way. Social media apps also give

you the option if you would like to receive notifications. This is a way where news will hit you

immediately and alert you. The news reaches people faster through social media so this is a

benefit of being on apps like Twitter or Reddit.

Although social media apps alert you when news is breaking, people do not want to

receive a bunch of notifications about pointless news they do not care about. In order for users

to receive important news fast, they must turn on notifications. Sure, getting serious news

updates that people need to receive as fast as possible is a great benefit to social media; but

how many of the notifications people are receiving are important news that is urgent to know?

Notifications also are known to keep users occupied on their mobile devices. Steve Glaveski, an

author for the Harvard Business Review stated, “after a notification has forced us to switch

between tasks, it can take us about 23 minutes to get back to the task at hand, according to a

study from University of California, Irvine” (Glaveski). This shows that notifications take

precious time away from users. People get distracted when they see a notification pop up on

their phone and can easily forget what they are doing and open the app linked to the notice.

This is a problem that many people do not even realize is occurring to them. Amy Blaschka for
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Forbes puts it best by writing, “The bottom line is this: Turning off social media notifications lets

your phone work as a tool for you rather than letting it control you” (Blaschka). Electronic

devices can easily take control of what is truly important in life. It is hard to resist the urge of

social media through notifications and that is exactly what social media platforms want you to

do… give in.

This is a topic that is dear to me. My personal experience with social media has not been

a good one and I would like to change that for others by learning from me. If the research does

not scare you of the dangerous of social media, then hopefully my personal experience can

shine light on the dangerous of social media. I had a flip phone up until seventh-grade. In

seventh grade I got the new iPhone 5C, which I thought was the coolest thing. The iPhone could

do so much more than my flip phone that I was used to. Before, I only had access to phone calls

and text messages on my phone, now I had access to games and all sorts of apps. I downloaded

Instagram my seventh-grade year, just a few months after getting my new phone. I knew about

Instagram but could never really participate in it because I would have had to use the family

iPad and I would have liked my privacy with my social media account. When I created my

account, I started to follow all my friends. We always were posting memes and other funny

pictures for our friends to see. One time, me and my close friend Jack got into a meme battle on

Instagram. He would send pictures of memes that were praising the University of Iowa, who he

rooted for, or roasting the University of Michigan, because I was a big wolverine fan. I

remember this meme battle going on for at least two to three hours. I was scrolling through

countless memes on the internet to post on Instagram to get back at Jack’s memes he was

posting. I was scrolling the internet and looking up memes for so long that I lost track of time. I
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had been on my phone for so long that it died on me. I realized I had done nothing productive

for the last few hours because I was so engaged in this meme battle with Jack. I realized the

dangers of social media very early on because I realized that it was getting addictive to stay on

all the time. I did not want this new Instagram addiction to get any worse, so I tried to tone

down my usage of the app with some success. I realized that social media could get to the point

where it is best to only check the apps once a day or you can get sucked into scrolling for hours

on end.

The time lost while people are glued to their phone is not nearly the worst harm that

social media can do to a person. There is great evidence to back up the claim that social media

usage can drive teens toward a state of depression. Social media apps have unknowingly

glorified suicide. In the article “Rise in teen suicide rates coincides with increase in social media

use, analysis finds social media & teen suicide” written by staff and news service reports at

Yakima Herald-Republic, Jeremy Garcia states, “If a child decides to kill themselves, then a lot of

people are posting 'rest in peace,' or sharing stories about how much they cared about that

person. You see them get a lot of attention and so it can glorify suicide and make children think,

'If I kill myself, I might get that same kind of attention'” (Garcia). This proves social media apps

are providing platforms for teens to engage in this suicidal behavior and go through with the

act. Teenagers are going through puberty and an unusual time of their life and that can be hard

on them. The incentive of gaining attention on social media through suicide can be enough for

teenagers to go through the act.

The connection to suicide from the use of social media is not one I have personally

experienced, but I know someone who has. A boy in my hometown named Corey unfortunately
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took his life because of hate he was getting on Twitter. I met Corey a couple of times and he

was a very nice kid. Corey’s problem started on Snapchat. There was an inappropriate picture

being sent around of him behind his back. Corey found out about this when the picture was

posted on Twitter. Because of the embarrassment he felt, he decided to take his own life. This

is a very sad story to tell. Every time I think about Corey, I think that so much could have been

done in order to prevent this from happening. I try to raise awareness for the dangers of social

media in order to stop terrible things like this from happening in the future. Social media has

caused many people to take their lives. These all could have been prevented if people think

before they post, but sadly, that does not always happen.

There are multiple links to depression as a result from usage of social media. Another

link of this is depression because of body standards teens see while using these apps. The users

see countless scrolling of perfect bodies that are edited to form an unrealistic standard of

beauty. This also goes the same way for male teenagers who see pictures of edited muscles to

enhance their size and make them look bigger than they actually are. These are both ways that

social media provides a platform for this behavior to occur. For instance, in the article titled “

The dark side of social media: How unrealistic beauty standards are causing identity issues”

written by Ntianu Obiora, the author states, “Many have developed serious mental health

issues, identity issues and even body dysmorphia trying to emulate the beauty standards that

are simply unattainable.” She goes on to say, “Whilst we may believe we are mindlessly

scrolling though such content, our subconscious is soaking it all up and before we know it, those

perfectly formed bodies have become the standard by which we measure everything else”

(Obiora). Users of social media apps have gotten so used to seeing these perfect bodies that
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they question themselves and wonder if that is what they should be looking like. This is a

problem because many of these images of models are either fake or unhealthy. Teens may go

without eating for a few meals to try and get a perfect body image that is unrealistic. Because

users see these images so much, they feel like the goal of having a perfect body is achievable,

but in reality, it is not.

The constant access to pictures of professional and college athletes on my Instagram

and Twitter accounts had an effect on me personally. Ever since I was a little kid, I wanted to

become a college athlete and professional athlete. For this reason, I followed all my favorite

athletes on Twitter and Instagram because I wanted to see what they were saying and their

posts they were putting up on social media. I was very involved in sports social media pages.

Later on in high school, I knew I wanted to play college football. I was a bigger kid compared to

the other high schoolers at my school, but I was no where near the top football recruits or

college athletes’ bodies. I saw athletes like Saquon Barkley, Aaron Donald, and Zeke Elliot on

Instagram all the time posting pictures of them in their football uniform and filling out their

pads. I noticed that their arms, legs, and even Saquon’s abs were all much bigger than mine and

more defined. This made me feel uncomfortable. I thought that I would not have a chance qat

playing college football if I did not look like my NFL and college football idols. This forced me to

get in the gym and lift every day, eat more, and drink protein shakes. I was doing everything in

my power to try and gain weight in order to look like a football player. I was starting to engage

in unhealthy behavior by eating too much protein and lifting too often. I did not understand

that going to the gym and working out too much can be bad for your body. I was overusing my

muscles, and because of this, I was putting my body at risk of harming itself. I got a trainer my
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senior year of high school and he told me that I needed to let my muscles recover when I work

out. My trainer told me I need to rest, or I will tear something in my body which would hurt my

chances of playing college football. From that point forward, I ate more regularly and only lifted

three to four times a week. I wanted to have a body like the athletes that I look up to, and I was

willing to do almost anything to get there. I did not know that by trying to overlift and overeat

that I was putting myself at a great risk of hurting myself without knowing it. Now, I try to not

let what star athletes’ effect how I train and fuel my body. I know how often I need to lift and

how much I need to eat every day. Social media provided me with a poor body image of myself

and it effected my body in a harmful way.

Another link from social media to depression is the photos people are posting on these

social media cites. People mostly post the highlight of their day, month, or even year on social

media apps like Instagram. All of these posts are threaded together in a feed, this is what users

see. A University of Michigan Professor named Oscar Ybarra was quoted in an article entitled

“The FOMO Is Real: How Social Media Increases Depression and Loneliness” written by Gigen

Mammoser, saying, “What happens many times when they log on is that you kind of activate a

lot of social comparison. People don’t necessarily have to be super aware that this is occurring,

but it does. You log on, you’re generally dealing with very curated content on the other side”

(Gigen). This proves that users are actively making comparisons to posts that they see. Most of

the posts on Instagram and Facebook are the best moments of that person’s day. If people are

making comparisons to these highlights, they will start to feel lonely or depressed if they are

sitting in their room scrolling through social media feeds. If someone is having a normal day

relaxing at home, they will feel left out seeing people at parties and having fun on their social
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media feeds. This is just another way that social media platforms are causing the youth to

become more depressed.

Social media users fall into the trap of believing that being on apps like Twitter and

Instagram will help them feel happy. When I was in high school, I started using Twitter. All of

my friends had the app so I thought that I should download it. My friends all seemed to love

talking about what athletes are tweeting about and what sports pages are saying about their

favorite teams. They looked like they were having so much fun talking about sports together

that I thought if I downloaded Twitter, I would instantly love it and my knowledge of baseball

statistics and football facts would go up. Instead of this, I found that I was constantly glued to

my phone scrolling through Twitter. The only place I wanted to be was laying on my couch at

home looking at my phone. The thing that gave me happiness was Twitter. Because Twitter was

the only pace where I was happy, everything else seemed less enjoyable. I started to hang out

with my friends less even though the reason I downloaded the app in the first place was to

engage in baseball and football conversations with my friends in the first place. I started to be a

loner and only do things by myself. My life consisted of football practice, homework, and

Twitter. There was no room to have fun with my friends and family anymore, which resulted in

myself becoming less happy overall. I was tricked into believing that Twitter was going to

improve my well-being, not tarnish it.

Another issue with social media platforms is that they use their loyal users for financial

gain. Many people do not know that the advertisements they see are being put on their screen

through a specialized algorithm to influence the social media user to buy that specific product.

The products that are being

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Social media does a lot of good for people. People are connected together all around

the globe because of new technology and these social media apps. But there are also

dangerous consequences when using social media apps. I hope you realize to be careful when

using apps like Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, and others through reading through the research,

facts, and my personal experiences with social media.

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Works Cited