Who remembers when social media was just a tool for communication? For many, it may come as a surprise that platforms like X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram now hold extensive control over society. In our current digital age, social media influence has become increasingly prevalent in our lives–and not for the better.
One of the reasons social media is so harmful is its idealization of overconsumption and consumerism. Influencers often perpetuate this idea of a “life-changing” product that people must own. However, this has escalated into a “you are what you own” mentality, where the value of a person is based on what material goods they own. This has given way to the recent surge of “Sephora kids”–overzealous kids who barge into beauty stores to buy products from trendy skincare brands like Drunk Elephant and Tower 28–all because they have seen their favorite online personas using those products as well.
Many adolescents, especially ones under the age of 16, attempt to follow in the footsteps of their favorite influencers, and that can be an extremely dangerous concept to normalize. Kids who are barely out of elementary school have become used to overconsumption and have begun putting products on their faces that are not meant for their age group, but can actually cause serious damage to their skin. In addition, according to Michigan-based publication Lanthorn, children who aren’t even old enough to own credit cards are becoming a target demographic for advertisers.
“In what is now a nearly $11 billion-a-year business,” the Lanthorn Editorial Board said, “advertising to minors on these social media platforms is far more profitable and dangerous than we could’ve predicted.”
This alarming trend of minors basing their self-worth on physical products has also been exacerbated by the rise in cyberbullying and harassment. Online anonymity protects the identities of users who send malicious comments and messages, further normalizing destructive behaviors.
According to a study by the National Library for Medicine, the prevalence for cyberbullying has increased from 10% to 42% in the US, Canada, Australia, and England. The NIH also reported that in a survey of Romanian teenagers, nearly 50% of all respondents claimed they were victims of cyberbullying, with females more likely to be harassed.
“It seems that the impact of cyberbullying is worse than that of traditional bullying,” said the NIH, “since it is available in a medium that the victim is not able to control.”
This is not to say that we can’t use social media for good, however: the massive influence of platforms like TikTok or YouTube has given way for our actions to have implications on a wider scale. When English hyper-pop artist Charli XCX endorsed Vice President and Democrat candidate Kamala Harris in July, fans began to fuse songs from her sixth studio album “BRAT” with clips of Harris’s career, which compounded with the campaign’s official endorsement of the trend, boosting her presence among younger voters.
“A typical ‘BRAT girl’ sees Kamala and sees something of herself in Kamala,”’ UC Berkeley associate professor Abigail De Kosnik said.
It may be true that what we post on social media can truly change the world, but it is now apparent that the influence of social media sites has become more of a liability than a benefit. Companies like Instagram and TikTok need to be more proactive in shielding people from dangerous ideologies, harassment, and cyberbullying on their platforms and advocating for the promotion of positive influences. After all, social media is a tool that everyone should take responsibility for.