The rapid foray that social media has made into people’s lives on a global scale is truly impressive, yet hardly surprising. Initially creates as an online platform for sharing opinions globally and exploring new ideas, social media has quickly become a powerful tool that could be used both to address a broad range of social issues and for promoting a specific agenda that could potentially lead to a harmful outcome. Due to their nature and the set of options for managing online communication that they provide, social networks quickly become echo chambers for numerous people, thus not only failing to serve the purpose of promoting diversity but also being actively used to reinforce the status quo.
Although social media remains a rather low-entry environment, it does provide a certain kind of shield against people that may use social media as a source of concealing their identity and taking a break amidst the complicated sociocultural setting. However, in the current context of the focus on promoting cultural sensitivity, people are more likely to accept the idea of other people with similar characteristics existing. According to Gould (2019), such a mental bubble, while providing temporary peace of mind for those that are unwilling to participate in active and sometimes controversial online discussions, also contributes to significant inconveniences. For example, the fact that the specified bubble does not allow an individual to control information input more carefully and, therefore, leaves out a substantial amount of data that would have otherwise been useful needs to be mentioned as a major problem. Therefore, Gould (2019) argues that the ability to withstand a certain amount of criticism and the existence of an opposing viewpoint are vital characteristics of a responsible and self-sufficient consumer of information.
In turn, Dieker (2017) offers another interesting perspective on the subject matter. Emphasizing the increased role of the social media functions linked to unfollowing and muting people, the article promotes a strategy for improving one’s mental health and restricting the amount of context that evokes negative emotions as the main method of managing one’s mental health properly. The suggested recommendations appear to be quite useful since they, indeed, outline the detrimental effects of modern media on the development of mental health. Therefore, ensuring that one’s social media communication is managed just as carefully as real-life interactions should be regarded as an important part of maintaining online informational hygiene. Moreover, the specified recommendations appear to be particularly important in the setting where the amount of incoming data becomes mostly uncontrollable and requires manual management. Thus, being able to remove oneself from a conversation that appears to be emotionally exhausting is vital for one’s mental well-being.
Although social networks were initially built to share knowledge and opinions, making communication more diverse, the main problem of modern social media has become that one of a social echo chamber, where an opinion that contradicts even a minor point of the accepted perspective is equated to a dissent. The described phenomenon leads to an increased threat of cyberbullying, which may entail even the instances of doxing. Therefore, the value of modern social media needs to be assessed based not only on their potential for information sharing but also on how they are used by general audiences. Since social media provides ample grounds for people to flock in groups and reinforces the concept of mob mentality, it is particularly important for its users to approach online communication responsibly and embrace the diversity of thought.
References
Dieker, N. (2017) It’s time to unfriend and unfollow on social media. LifeHacker. Web.
Gould, W. R. (2019). Are you in a social media bubble? here’s how to tell. NBC News. Web.