People began to live in small areas with large numbers after the industrial revolution and this has brought about a more introverted society instead of a more social society. A couple of centuries later, social media has entered our lives with smartphones. At this point, society was like someone who found water when they were dying of thirst in the desert. The abundance that came after this long famine caused many problems.

To begin with, allied to the invention of social media, people who have been lonely in crowds and starving for attention for centuries have found the opportunity to socialise without leaving the safe zone, but the unexpected thing was that desire to draw attention didn’t have a saturation point. Therefore, people have become addicted to social media in a very short time. They always wanted more; The person who got 10 likes wanted to get 100 likes; the person who got 100 likes wanted to get 1000 likes; the person who got 1000 likes wanted to get 10000 likes. It’s like getting hungrier while eating. As you know, drug addicts begin to want more as they consume; they spend their time between two doses thinking about the next dose. It’s the same for social media addicts. Even while working or studying, they aimlessly and involuntarily go to the phone and check their social media accounts: “What’s new? Did anyone new like my last post or who shared a new post?” This doesn’t seem different from drug addiction. Additionally, as you know, drug addicts compromise their personalities and morals when they can’t afford to get what they need. Again, there is a strong similarity. We have been seeing for years how much people compromise their character on social media to gain more followers, likes or sponsors. Human beings are not perfect creatures at controlling their desires. And it’s harmful to get lost in the whirlpool of endless desires.

In addition, as a result of heavy use of social media, people who are not as successful at drawing attention as others may feel worthless. After a point, the feeling of inadequacy is a normal result for people who follow popular accounts heavily when it is considered that people on social media show their lives as a shining one, even if it is not. Moreover, some people may try to catch those shining lives, and this can be more devastating than just feeling inadequate. For example, some people may exceed their budgets to go to luxury places where their enviable people share photos. Taking and sharing photos in the same place can give temporary satisfaction but can cause bigger problems too. Another example is people who are jealous of the beautiful and fit appearances of those whom they follow and harm their health while trying to resemble them. Not to mention that most of them were not able to achieve this due to different living conditions and were disappointed. Consequently, excessive use of social media can prevent people from being satisfied with their own lives. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, when it is considered how problematic people are about being satisfied, this situation seems like an inevitable end.

Last but not least, I would like to mention that social media’s echo chamber effect can distance and alienate people instead of bringing them closer. Contrary to the randomness of real life, people have more control while creating their environment on social media. Therefore, people usually follow those who have the same ideology, mentality or lifestyle. This causes them to meet less often with opposing people, and when they do, they react as if they have seen an alien. Social media platforms have even developed algorithms that serve this purpose, and now everyone has a personalised feed. When we look at Twitter, etc. each of us sees a different feed. In this way, people become more polarised; begin to believe their opinion is the only correct one, become more biased towards alternative ideas. When Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Joseph N Cappella used the term “echo chambers” in 2008, they referred to traditional media. But today, we see a perfect version of echo chambers when we look at social media.

In conclusion, even if social media has brought about some fun and comfort, those are very lightweight on the benefit-harm scale. In my opinion, we can debate whether we are able to use social media while avoiding its damages, but it’s a clear issue that social media has a lot of harm for individuals and society. If we are going to start fixing some things, we can start by reacting to greedy social media companies that don’t care about users’ psychology. Of course, in order to do this, we must first raise awareness of society.