Social media has become an integral part of the modern world, considering that many people opt to use these platforms to interact with others. Personally, I prefer to use Facebook as it is not flooded with spam and advertisement as much as Instagram, Tik Tok, or similar apps. I use Facebook to interact with my old friends, who I can no longer see because they moved to other cities or even countries, so this social platform seems a perfect option to interact with them from time to time. However, mainstream social media applications appear to have influenced today’s society since people are constantly exposed to hate, negative comments or publications, and fake influencers.
To elaborate, impression management theory has become real since people try to become their better selves just to make a good impression on people they meet online. This fake image on social media can harm a person’s self-esteem as people may feel insecure compared to the influencers’ or supermodels’ content on social platforms. Goffman’s theory on social exchange is also apparent in the modern world, considering that people tend to quickly end relationships with people that seem to be of no benefit to them (Barbalet, 2020). Based on the aforementioned concepts, it is apparent that social media nowadays is entirely fake and toxic to users since it worsens their mental health and self-esteem.
However, the abundance of social media platforms presents numerous options for users because every application is used for different purposes. For instance, Tik Tok is mainly used to exchange funny videos with friends, while Twitter is a public diary where one can present opinions on crucial topics or not so much to the followers. Consequently, it is clear that the communication style between users is dissimilar on different social media platforms. Overall, the application’s options can also limit the types of interaction as, for example, people can use some media only for texting and others to video call or record voice messages.