Social media is a very scary and dangerous place. On the surface, it seems to just be fun and innocent, but, when you dig deeper, you begin to learn all the flaws and risks of social media. Recently, I read the story Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. In this story, Mary Shelley used a twisted way to describe how having certain knowledge could get out of hand and be very dangerous. In Frankenstein, there is a man named Victor Frankenstein who created a monster. It doesn’t take a genius to know how that could go very wrong very quickly. Throughout the story, the monster gains more and more knowledge. Usually knowledge is a useful thing, but when it came to the monster, knowledge was bad. The monster learned that he was not like the typical human. The monster would be rejected by people because he looked different. The monster began to pity himself. The monster used his pity as power and began to kill people. Since Victor was responsible for the monster he started go mad. Victor felt responsible for all of the monsters wrongdoings. We as people have let the use of social media get out of control. Like Victor has his monster, social media is our monster. Social media was made so that we could connect with people. We have turned it into a way to ridicule people, judge people, hate people, and so much more. We have let our political views be based on social media, we have let what people post on social media form our opinions about those people, we have basically allowed social media to control our lives.
Stephan Helgesen, who is a writer for the ABQ report wrote a very interesting article on social media called The Social Media’s Pandora Box. The last paragraph of Stephans article really relates to my specific ideology about social media. Stephan said:
”..Technology is like a shark; it must constantly keep moving and disrupting the status quo with new products and new platforms in order to stay relevant and profitable. Social media is one of those sharks, but its creators must remember one important thing: those who satisfy a need can also become a victim from it…”. (Helgesen)
This quote relates very closely to Victor Frankenstein’s feelings towards his monster from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Victor’s monster starts to consume all of Victors happiness, life, and time. Victor created a monster and had to pay the price of doing so.
When it comes to social media, like the quote above says, creators are constantly trying to satisfy the wants and needs of consumers. Where social media is right now, it’s not too out of control just yet. But, social media has come a long way from where it started.
We went from simple MySpace to Facebook and Instagram both having the ability to do live streaming and video chatting.
It is not necessarily a bad thing that social media has progressed so much. But, it has given people the ability to let it control their lives more. I think that social media has really lost its meaning. It’s kind of this big dark hole where people go to feel better about themselves. In the show Black Mirror by Charlie Brooker, the first episode of season three called “Nosedive” gives a really good example of how social media could get out of control. In this episode, people’s lives are based on the ratings people give them on their social media posts and on their actual interactions with people. The ratings people got was how they would pay for their goods, how they obtain transportation, what jobs they can get, and what their social class is. In this episode, Lacie is the main character. Lacie starts of with a decent rating, but as her true colors began to show; her rating dropped. As her rating dropped she could no longer pay for what she needs and nobody liked her. Although it’s pretty unlikely that the world will start to function this way, I still believe that many people base their worth on the likes and followers they have on social media and what people think about them.
Now, if that’s not scary enough, in an article published by the Huffington Post, written by Suren Ramasubbu called Biological and Physiological Reasons for Social Media Addiction, it discusses why social media is addicting. I learned a couple things from this source. First of all, I learned the different types of addiction that can come from social media. There is device addiction, information overload, net compulsions, cybersexual addiction, and cyber-relationship addiction. Basically, social media addiction is separated into those five categories. Social media isn’t only Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. There’s also dating websites, like EHarmony™, or Christian Mingle™. There’s websites for pornography and websites like Reddit™ which is primarily for gathering information. I also discovered that there is a part of your brain that gets stimulated when you’re using social media. It’s similar, but not quite as serious as alcohol addiction. Social media can be a relief to your brain. Luckily, there aren’t really any social media withdrawal symptoms as serious as drug withdrawal, but it can give you a panicky feeling when you take extended breaks from social media. Comparing social media addiction to drug addiction may be a bit far fetched. But it’s still an addiction, and all addiction should be taken seriously. In Frankenstein, Victor became fixated on the idea of gaining more knowledge. Victor wanted to do something so big and so different from what other previous philosophers had already discovered. Victor longed for fame and appreciation. People who post on social media are looking for the same thing. We as humans get addicted to the idea of popularity. We get so lost in the idea of social media that we lose sight of what and who we are.
So, how can social media be a good thing? Well, there are a few benefits. And to some, the benefits may outweigh the disadvantages of it. If used properly, social media can be used to educated yourself, to connect with your friends and family, to express yourself, and to entertain yourself. Social media can definitely fun, as long as it is used in moderation.
Social media in its current state is already pretty bad, but it could get worse. Social media creators tend to keep what there future plans for their networks are, but, with how far social media has already come, you can only imagine how bad it could get. With all the new technology that is yet to come and all the crazy new experiments that will be tried, there’s no way of knowing what will come next. Overall, it may be said that social media is a pretty scary place. It’s an overwhelming and confusing place for almost everyone involved with it. You are able to learn the horrors of the world and get knowledge of things you never wanted to know; just like how Frankenstein wishes he didn’t know how to create the monster that he made. I only hit a few points of the dangers of social media. When you dig deeper you find many more scary things that have occured do to all of the perks that social media has. People can use social media to stalk people, to torment people, to mock people, to pretend to be people, and to even hack people. All in all, I believe that is very important to be super cautious when using social media. I also believe that that the use of social media should be limited in many people’s lives so they can focus on the more important things.
Work Cited
- Helgesen, Stephan. “The Social Media Pandora’s Box.” ABQReport, ABQReport, 27 Aug. 2018, www.abqreport.com/single-post/2018/08/27/The-social-media-Pandoras-Box?fbclid=IwAR2ZfvaNwo6_A09MuU1mTgm1o7gKu-NabYoGsfS67ldw4otoXe7otIYsa0g.
- Ramasubbu, Suren. “Biological & Psychological Reasons for Social Media Addiction.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 13 Mar. 2017, www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/biological-psychological-reasons-for-social-media_us_58c279a7e4b0c3276fb78388.
- Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, 1797-1851. Frankenstein, Or, The Modern Prometheus : the 1818 Text. Oxford ; New York :Oxford University Press, 1998. Print.
- Brooker, Charlie, Black Mirror, “Nosedive.” Season 3, episode 1, 21 Oct. 2016.
- Mr. Park has a little black Chupacabra of a dog named Padfoot.
