I hate Facebook and I'm glad I'm done with it

Note: I understand that many of you like social media, and I respect that. I am just stating my personal reasons why I don't like social media. As a former facebook and Snapchat user, the reasons I will eventually describe are mostly from my own personal experiences. Do not take them seriously.

In my opinion, social media is a great breeding ground for attention seekers. Before I deleted my Facebook account, I would see a whole stream of attention seeking stuff on my feed because I followed a lot of attention seeking part.

Many of these posts consisted of selfies and people who cannot seem to survive without validation. Many of the posts were by girls in my age range and I am an adult as well. For example, I can see a picture of a girl in her bathing suit. I get the message saying "Hey look everyone!! I look beautiful!!! Enjoy!!!!" 

There is a big difference between friendly socializing and constantly needing validation. I admit that my claim on the majority may be wrong. Even if my claim that the majority of social media posts is wrong, I still believe that it is on social media and that it is not good. I even used to be attention seeking on social media, and I am guilty of it, which leads me to my next claim.

It was not just other people on social media that were attention seeking. I was even attention seeking too, and I am guilty of it. All I would post on social media were memes that no one seemed to be interested in, reposts of other people's posts, random pictures that made no sense, and anything else that was attention seeking besides selfies. As good as attention seeking may be, that feeling was just superficial. Deep down, I have never liked attention seeking for the same reason. In fact, part of the reason why I deleted my account was because I was attention seeking.

Social media is unsafe when used improperly. There is actually proven evidence that the Internet has hidden dangers that people need to watch out for. Every time something is posted on social media, everyone can see the Internet post. If an internet post contains sensitive information, then there is a risk of it falling into the wrong hands. Sexting and sharing personal information is definitely a no-no when it comes to safety. There are sexual predators and child predators all over the Internet that people need to keep a close eye out for. There is also the risk of cyberbullying. What makes it worse is that kids are the most at risk of this type of stuff. This does not just apply to social media. it applies to the Internet as a whole. Along with the internet predators that I mentioned before, there is a whole world of Internet dangers. Some files on the Internet that can be download could contain with it dangerous viruses.

It is a known fact that social media can worsen self esteem. There is actually proven evidence that the way people and their lives are portrayed through the Internet can worsen self esteem and body image. A person can scroll through an instagram feed and see pictures at the beach, pictures at the pool, girls in swimsuits, etc. and think "I want to be like that!" Yes, it is okay to be inspired by someone. However, the desire is harmful if felt too much. This makes the person viewing the feed upset that they are normal and that they don't go to the beach or the pool all the time, or that they don't look like a certain person. It also raises expectations about something to the point of unrealistic. Many of these pictures are impossible to achieve in behind the scenes. This is worsened by the use of filters and selfie-editing apps. It is not only damaging to the person viewing them, but also to the person posting it as well. The person posting them might be attention seeking and have poor self esteem and constantly need validation. Most likely, they are not going to receive the validation. This worsens their self esteem because it makes them upset they don't get the validation. It is not just social media posts, but it is also "likes" and "comments" and "friends." Self esteem should not depend on the amount of fake "likes" and "comments." Why should people have to be upset about something that is perfectly normal? It doesn't have to be with friends and classmates. Celebrities can have that effect, too. 

There is actually proven evidence that the way that people are portrayed throughout the media, including sexualization of women, has a damaging effect on body image. I have felt this effect firsthand as well. Although it was never to the extreme, it was enough to make me realize the damaging effect of social media. All of my friends would either stay in a 5-star hotel, go to the beach, or at a pool party. On top of that, many of them also had about 500-1000 followers, while my account peaked at 200 followers, most of which were bots. Their pictures would receive hundreds of likes and many comments, while I didn't receive a lot of likes and rarely received comments. Again, I cannot control what other people post. However, I can control what I see, which is exactly what I did by deleting my account.

Social media is fake, in my opinion. Everyone seems to be putting on a mask. That mask is what they want the world to see, rather than what they actually are. This is damaging to the person putting the mask on, because it prevents them from being themselves. It also take a lot of energy to create and maintain a fake, online persona. 

My advice: Stop caring about what other people want! Be apathetic! Just be yourself! :D