Very long post about social media in general

People says that social media, mostly the mainstream services like Twitter/X, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, etc, are toxic. What do they mean when they say it's "toxic"? Well, saying that something is "toxic", among other things like being poisonous, is that "it is unpleasant or unacceptable", according to the cambridge dictionary. But it can also be poisonous. Not in a physical way, but in a psychological one.

For instance, I watched a video a long time ago on young girls looking like older women because they decided to perform cosmetic changes in their faces, often including surgery, because that's what the "grown up" women does to "look beautiful". And in doing so, because this is what women in the age of 40+ normally does, they acquire the appearance of a 40+ years old woman who did surgery to their face. But where did they get this idea? Mostly from influencers in TikTok. So now there is a wave of teenager girls who look like older women because some influencer made them believe that would make them look more beautiful.

Moreover, a lot of influencers in social media, from the mid 2010s onward, attempt to showcase a way of life that is often unrealistic and sometimes even harmful to people. You see this all the time with influencers selling you fake expectations from diets or ways of thinking, or telling you how they can earn millions of money from literally nothing. Giving false hopes and expectations to their followers, and depression and intrusive thoughts to those who feel like they are unable to accomplish their goals, possibly making them feel guilty for not being able to do so.

I'm not going to go much more in depth because you can search for articles talking about this all around the internet and it's a lengthy topic. But know that when people talks about social media being toxic, this is the kind of stuff they are referring to. Some people hog all the attention of thousands or even millions of people, and they sell you their ideals, abusing of the digital liberties of being able to edit their videos in such a way they look realistic, so that you can believe them and you keep following them, making them money and giving them an unfair amount of fame (usually called "clout" nowadays).

Keep in mind that all of these people has a monetary intent. They live out of their content (which is why you will also often see people referring them as "content creators"), and they need a cult following them if they want to keep their income growing. You will find a lot of these influencers promoting products and services from other companies or individuals, or even joining or creating businesses themselves.

Toxicity doesn't come just from influencers alone, but also from wannabe influencers, also known as clout chasers, who will do literally anything in order to gain popularity and followers. Some just want to make "easy" money, others wants to be popular. They'll try to stick to people more popular than them trying to leech popularity from them, pretending to be people they are not, and once they reach that popularity they will abandon anyone with a lower popularity than them, just to move to their next "prey".

And if you confront them in any way, they'll try to mock you for not being as popular as they are, and block you. I've seen this a couple times on Twitter/X already. And yes, it's as disgusting as you can imagine.

Anyways... it's funny to think about this "toxicity", because come to think of it, people really loves anything that is toxic to them. Processed food with chemicals that makes them believe it tastes better than it really does, making them crave for more, salty and greasy food, drugs in general, most things that are addictive in some way are in some way toxic to them. And this is no exception. Social media causes addiction in a lot of people. They tend to post a lot, they keep going back to see if there are replies or interactions to their posts, they get anxious when they can't go online. And you see them walking on the streets, looking at their phones, without paying any attention to their surroundings. Forcing people to get out of their way, or colliding with them. It can be dangerous.

And the algorithms... oh boy, don't get me started in the algorithms who feed content to those people.

This is already a very lengthy post, so I'll be brief here. I hate this kind of social media. I believe that it is destroying lives and it is damaging an ill enough already society. You only have to look at how our society has shifted in the past 15-20 years. Before the "boom" of the internet, smartphones and social media, things were bad but everyone was more or less happy, at least in the west. And right after that, everyone went depressed and has issues nobody ever had because of a bad usage of these devices. For instance, I never had to feel anxious for not looking at my whatsapp thinking that something is going to think that I'm ghosting (ignoring on the internet) them for not talking to them, only because I don't feel like going into whatsapp. I don't like whatsapp to begin with. Or have to worry about appearing in a photo, and then have random people I don't even know judging me or making memes of me just because they think I look funny.

I think people in general need less time on the internet, and more time on the grass. And the mainstream platforms of social media needs to die. Try smaller or decentralized communities instead. Try joining a Misskey or Mastodon instance, and meet people without an algorithm on top of you, judging you by your content, interactions and specially money. But also try to live outside of the internet once in a while. See the real world with your eyes, experience it. See the differences with the world the influencers are showing you.