Social media has definitely become a big part of my life. I constantly find myself scrolling Twitter, Instagram, Vine, and Facebook, checking my email, updating my Tumblr and watching videos on YouTube. Majority of the stuff I see is harmless, but you get the occasional "black vs white twitter" joke, or body shaming pictures on instagram and even the "if your boyfriend hits you, stay with him because if he's risking getting thrown in jail for you, he must really love you" videos on YouTube. (ill include the link below) Some of the stuff I see literally leaves me speechless. It's sometimes embarrassing to say I'm from this generation. People always ask how old I am and I'm not gonna lie, I hesitate to say 17 because many older people will think "oh she's 17 and immature like the rest of them" but what makes us all the same? There are only some of us that do things so cringeworthy that they give the rest of us a bad name, and yeah they have some growing up to do. Some of us just express our opinions. But again, some of us who express our opinions take things way too far on social media. I think the idea of social media comforts us because we're behind a computer or a cellphone and for the most our location is pretty anonymous. We find comfort in saying "if you don't like what I post, don't follow me" or "don't look at my page then". But some of the things we say, whether we realize it or not, can be really degrading to some people. Not every guy is a 6 foot 1, athletic scholar, with perfect features and a hot girlfriend. Not every girl is a victoria secret model. Body image is definitely targeted more than anything else. And then comes race superiority. I constantly see people making jokes like "blacks girls are only good for..." this "latina girls are crazy..." that "white boys think they're great because they have dads" and to be honest, it pisses me off. Society is accepting abuse on social media, and its so easy for us to blame them. We might not realize it but WE are society. We are adding fuel to the fire on social media. The idea of social media isn't ruining us, what we post on social media is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGrbGpdEftc <- one of the things I saw on facebook that literally left me mind blown.
I completely agree with you, I find it sort of ironic that our current generation offers up complaints about the up and coming generations, yet the reason they are the way they are is simply because of us. It's like a ripple effect actually, the actions we do now, do effect how those younger than us react, especially social media. The things we post on Twitter and Facebook are able to be viewed by anyone, and that means everyone. I've personally seen rants posted online over petty arguments, and conveyed in an extremely inappropriate matter. Calling each other out through a computer rather than discussing and settling it out in person. People misuse social media, acting as though it's their diary and seek out to hurt people with it. The whole body image topic you brought up was completely accurate, whenever I see a post or tweet saying something along the lines of "collar bones or pizza? Thigh gaps or ice cream?" makes me feel sick to my stomach. If you're going to critique the human body, you might want to school yourself first, not everyone is a cookie cutter. Bodies are different, and don't function weight wise identically to anyone else. But I guess that would take too much time, and just assuming and voicing hurtful comments are much easier.
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