How Social Media Impacted Gen Z
Today, in 2023, I think it’s safe to say that the internet owns all of our lives now. We don’t use the internet anymore: the internet uses us. If being online was only part of our experience beforehand, today it’s inescapable. The internet occupies every area of modern society. It’s where we apply for jobs, voice our opinions, watch TV shows and movies, share our life experiences, make friends, and even go shopping.
But for all the good and convenience the internet has brought us, it also came with some major problems. The biggest problem among these is how social media platforms like X, Instagram, and TikTok have thoroughly distorted our society. In some ways, social media is the real world now, as so much of our daily lives are curated and chronicled on these platforms. As a result, social media has had a disastrous effect on our collective mental health. This is especially the case for Generation Z, the first generation to not know life before the internet.
Now, as a member of Generation Z myself, I am acutely aware of how social media essentially created us. Apps such as Instagram and Snapchat were being released and refined as we grew up, so many of our most impressionable experiences occurred on our smartphones. Unfortunately, having social media all our lives has severely messed us up. We’re more depressed than previous generations are. We’re lonelier. We don’t spend as much time with our friends in-person, and we generally go outside less.
On one hand, why would we need to get out more? Social media practically gives us all of the entertainment we need. On the other hand, however, one could argue that we were robbed of the lives our parents got to live. Social media has become so ubiquitous that it has almost completely deprived us of the normal experiences of being human.
But how did we get here? How did we get to a point where many of us are more concerned with finding followers than friends? To answer this question, we need to look at the history of how social media platforms have evolved over time. For the sake of brevity, we will focus on social media platforms created since the beginning of the 21st century.
The History of Social Media
From the beginning, social media was easily able to capture the hearts of millions of users. The short-lived Six Degrees was the first platform to allow uploading profiles, but it was quickly overshadowed by Friendster. Friendster allowed people to make friends and comment on each other’s profiles. People could also share photos, videos, and messages with other users. These sites, along with the rise of blogging, allowed social media to gain a massive following. Friendster in particular amassed so many millions of users that it could no longer sustain itself!
The success of Friendster essentially created a digital arms race to see which social media developer could create the most sophisticated platform. For example, 2003’s Myspace established the trend of social media being geared toward young people. This is due to the site allowing users to stream music – especially their own music – on their profile pages. This feature, combined with Myspace’s youthful culture, allowed the site to become the world’s most visited site for a few years. Myspace would then go on to be eclipsed by Facebook, arguably the biggest social media platform in the world.
However, as social media platforms grew, developers started researching ways to hijack people’s attention spans. For developers, this partly meant that the rise of smartphones was perfect timing. Apps like Instagram and Snapchat launched as smartphone-only platforms, prioritizing uploading pictures and videos. Since Snapchat invented the story, a video only available on a profile for 24 hours, the app incentivized people to use it every day.
Additionally, social media platforms began prioritizing shorter and shorter forms of content. Sites like X (formerly Twitter) encourage people to write a ton of short, half-baked comments, especially with its 280-character limit. Vine and TikTok became the kings of short form videos, as they are built around users watching a deluge of short, funny videos.
Before long, social media became addictive. Very addictive, considering that people now had tons of options on how to spend their time online. Other sites that emerged during the 2000s and 2010s include YouTube, Twitch, Discord, Reddit, Tumblr, 4Chan, and many more. No matter who you were, there was a website that appealed to your interests. What happens when you combine these options with a generation of young children, who haven’t developed self-control skills yet? The result is a group of young adults who are endlessly plugged in to their devices.
Commentary
I believe that our societal addiction to social media is a problem of progress. This technology is so big and chaotic that we don’t yet know how to control it. In fact, if social media keeps expanding at the rate that it is, we may never be able to fully regulate these platforms.
So, what’s the solution? While we may not be able to stop social media, we can still learn how to build healthier habits for our screen time. We can afford to take a break from our phones every now and then. If being unplugged is difficult, we can try using app or website blockers to make it easier. I particularly enjoy using such software to relax for a couple of hours each day.
Ultimately though, I theorize that we as a species may simply have to learn how to adapt to this technology. Like the printing press, it may take us decades or even centuries to fully grasp the internet. However, if we can truly master social media, we might be able to use it to build better, more stable communities than ever before.
Until then, all we can do is wait.
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