On a typical weekday the average young adult follows the same story: They wake up, turn off the alarm on their phone and begin the day by scrolling through social media. They are looking for everything they missed in the eight hours that they were asleep. As they continue their day they will periodically look for time to check social media, and if they actually do something exciting it is imperative they take pictures to share with followers later. They will then edit the photos and plan the perfect time to post; however, it does not end there. They will obsessively check the post and monitor it to make sure it has the appropriate amount of likes and comments. When they are ready for sleep again, they will end the night the same way they started it: By scrolling to see everyone else’s day. How did this become the new normal? Does this actually show what is going on in people’s lives? Does this make others miss out on life or enjoy it more because they can share it with others? The idea of social media and its influence has been debated between health professionals, parents, and different generations. Social media has many benefits and yet to some it is still dangerous how often people are on social networking sites. While it can seem like a surface problem, there are multiple viewpoints that do not create an easy answer.
Generation Z is known as the generation that grew up on technology. This is a group of young adults who grew up and learned to stay connected through social media. Being the generation to grow up on technology, Gen. Z strives for accessibility and ways to complete tasks while being fast and efficient. Social media is an easy way to connect with people around the world. It allows for followers to see hobbies and accomplishments of specific users. Furthermore, it can connect individuals from different backgrounds or cultures.
The picture above shows how people around the world can connect through the media. Individuals are able to share stories and pictures with others who live far away and even those living down the street. With all of this communication through technology, it is easy to see why social media has become a huge influence in users’ lives. With friends and family living in different parts of the state and across the country, social media allows friends and family to stay connected and check in while maintaining a relationship through technology. As we currently deal with the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19), social media is providing people with a way to stay connected and involved during a time of isolation. This is allowing individuals to use smartphones to see family through a screen. According to author Marina Koren, apps like facetime and zoom are helping families communicate during a time when in person communication needs to be limited. It is imperative to stay in touch with loved ones even when families can not be together.
Similarly, social media also allows users to voice their opinions across different platforms. Recently, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement has been sweeping social media. Whether on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, users of all ages have been making their voices heard and sharing information with the world. Users are calling for major social changes from the government and policies that were not there before. Social media has given people who have not had the ability to be heard the platform to do so while sharing their story. Back in June there was a day called “Blackout Tuesday” which happened nationwide to demonstrate against police brutality where for a 24 hour period, any social media users restricted posting any content that was not a black screen with links to raise awareness for BLM. The New York Post article analyzes the impact of the BLM movement and how Blackout Tuesday has connected communities. This was a protest which took place over social media and created a space for ideas. When the social equality movement was first started in the 1960s there was not a place where opinions could be voiced and shared as easily as the BLM movement is doing now. Technology has opened the door and made voicing opinions available to individuals and their followers even if they can not go out and protest for this change. It allows for people to get involved and gives them information to help. Overall, it is a place for support and calling others to action showing no one is alone.
With all the positives it can be hard to see the negatives of social media; however, some argue social media has blocked real communication, and people do not know how to communicate face to face in society anymore. With technology at our fingertips, users find it easier to start a conversation or relationship, but it turns into words without any emotions. This is harming the younger generations because it leads to the inability to separate face to face communication and communication through phones. This video entitled I Forgot My Phone shows a woman who spends a day without her phone. As she goes through her day she realizes the people around her are more focused on their phones or taking pictures for posting purposes than actually enjoying the company around them. This lack of communication is harming young adults because there is no connection, empathy, or authenticity. Rather, it is a couple of sentences or pictures back and forth with no context. When individuals have a face to face conversation it allows for a connection and for others to see one’s true self. But when talking through direct messaging and posts, it is easy to put on a fake persona in order to get others to perceive them in a perfect way. Instead of letting a conversation flow the way it is supposed to, young adults tend to rethink and retype every response so they can try to get the “best” outcome.
Furthermore, young adults browse through social media to see what everyone is doing with their life, and they browse with a purpose: They want to know if what they posted was better. People strive to have the best story, the most perfect picture, or even the funniest joke. This creates a false reality, and leads young adults to believe the perfect lives of their friends. This also creates the fear of missing out (FOMO). This anxiety can lead to the feeling of needing to take a picture whenever they go out or even making them feel as though they need to do things so they can seem more involved in the “perfect” lives around them. This can cause multiple problems and will lead the younger generations to think their life is inadequate to those who show a “perfect” life. Actually having a perfect life is rare and in most cases individuals will actually miss opportunities to show off the best aspects of their life. When going to a concert all that can be seen are phone screens recording rather than the audience actually enjoying the artist. The videos will spam social media with terrible quality and blurry images, yet a person can show that they were indeed there. All they care about is the picture. Sherry Turkle shows how close this problem is when she explains that social media allows, “us to present ourselves as we want to be. This means we get to edit, and we get to delete.” Turkle points out how this can create a harmful mindset that likes or comments should dictate someone’s life. She points out how this is incorrect because social media holds impossible standards and she warns how people should enjoy life for themselves rather than taking pictures and likes. Users have the ability to edit out flaws and delete the posts that do not get the desired results. By always trying to be the best it can lead to people missing people and missing moments that they would have enjoyed otherwise.
All in all, social media has many benefits; however, there are also some setbacks. The importance of social media is that it is a marketplace of ideas for a younger generation to stay in touch, post about life, and bring sweeping changes to a present society. Generation Z is a generation that grew up with technology and it surrounds their daily lives. But although it can seem like it brings good to the world there are also setbacks. These include the fact that it creates a false reality which young adults feel as though they need to achieve. However these standards are impossible which can leave young adults feeling left out and alone. They no longer can communicate face to face and they are just waiting for a notification to come through. Technology is now a part of the new normal. Tomorrow generations of users will turn off their alarms and begin the daily process of scrolling, liking, commenting, and sharing to ensure they miss out on nothing from the prior day and attempt to start the long battle of making positive impactful changes for generations to come.
Works Cited
Charstarlene, director. I Forgot My Phone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OINa46HeWg8&t=23s.
Degelman, Channing. “WordPress Image.”
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Koren, Marina. “Social Distancing Could Change Our Relationship With FaceTime.” The
Atlantic, The Atlantic, 14 March 2020,
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/03/social-distancing-coronavirus-video
chat-facetime/608038/.
Manskar, Noah. “What Is ‘Blackout Tuesday’? Trend Floods Social Media amid George Floyd
Protests.” New York Post, New York Post, 2 June 2020,
nypost.com/2020/06/02/what-is-blackout-tuesday-everything-to-know-about-the-movem
ent/.
Turkle, Sherry, director. Connected, but Alone. TED Talk, youtu.be/t7Xr3AsBEK4.
Cosner Rhetoric 
