Transparency item: The Perspectives section of the Graphic is comprised of articles based on opinion. This is the opinion and perspective of the writer.
The downsides of social media seem to be generally well known. Social media can disrupt sleep and worsen anxiety, according to Deconstructing Stigma.
Although there are many routes to take when discussing negative aspects of social media, what interests me most is the sense of permanence it brings to someone’s character.
Platforms like Instagram and TikTok are a sort of highlight reel of a person’s life. When a person goes on a cool trip or does something they’re proud of, it almost feels expected to post about it. This creates a quick and easy way to “know” someone just from a quick scroll.
With specifically Instagram — which is used by 78% of young adults in the U.S. according to MSSmedia — people tend to have the basics of their life casted into the public eye.
Where a person grew up, where they went abroad, who they are dating and other major details about a person are often immediately accessible. This creates a method of viewing a person’s past immediately, which leads to forming judgments on their present.
I noticed an increasing annoyance in myself toward the image I had presented on social media. It wasn’t that I had posts that I regretted, but my page as a whole. I felt that it held me to being a certain type of person — the person people saw when they opened instagram.
It’s freeing to have an understanding that one can reinvent themselves by the day. Every decision one makes, or attitude one holds, is allowed to be brand new and unique to the experience at hand.
People have an idea of who they are, a sort of complex they’ve created for themselves, that is built on who they have been or what they have done so far. Their major, the type of people they spend time with, the sorority they are in, the humor or lack thereof they present in themselves give them a sense of character. However, there is immense freedom in knowing that one doesn’t need to hold themselves to any of those standards.
A couple months ago I started to crave a release from the standards I had created for myself. I wanted to be able to meet people who had no idea who I was, and know that whatever they saw in me could only be based on who I was in the moment. That might change from day to day or minute to minute, but for the time that it was communicated it would be fully genuine.
I wanted to experience the inverse of this as well: going into new relationships “blind” to how a person had built their character on social media. The idea was this would free me from assumption, and open a door to getting to know people more truthfully.
My final push in actually deleting my TikTok and my Instagram profile was through thinking about the future. I felt drawn to less conventional paths, and noticed a sense of being watched in making these decisions.
I decided to rid myself of what I felt was a burden, and was hit with an immediate freedom — freedom to live my solo adventure unwatched, and to start with a blank slate from moment to moment.
Before I made the jump, deleting social media seemed more complicated than it actually was. I went back and forth with how important it was to making connections and keeping up with people I no longer lived close to.
Although social media is great for the purpose of remaining in touch with the lives of people one cares about, it’s a transaction that is worth it for some.
Some people do not feel held to their Instagram profiles and have a smooth relationship with communicating themselves genuinely and unseriously on social media. For these people, deleting social media might not be as beneficial as maintaining touch with the lives of friends.
For me, the tradeoff was easy. Those whom I care about enough for deleting social media to become a negative, I keep in touch with on my own.
Social media can take away a part of one’s freedom through stifling their ability to reinvent themselves, and exist without the complex in the character they’ve built for themselves. The downsides of losing touch with the digital social world are measurable and, in my case and most probably the case of others, easily outweighed by the benefits.
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Contact Mahali Kuzyk via email: mahali.kuzyk@pepperdine.edu
