Personal Essay
Social Media has always been a part of my life in some shape or form but it wasn’t until recently that it started to become a problem. In its creation, it was an innocent form of communicating and sharing life experiences with friends both near and far. But it has become something evil and has begun to ruin the lives and the mental health of many young individuals. Teens and young people especially, rely on positive feedback from others constantly for reassurance in themselves and in order to feel confident. For a long time, I let the power of social media control my life and make my decisions for me as well as how I viewed myself, both positive and negative. It really wasn’t until Covid happened that everything changed for me. When life altogether pretty much stopped, people for the most part had nothing really to post or talk about. As a senior in high school at the time, it was very depressing to watch the things I had been dreaming about since I started school like prom and walking across the stage for graduation slowly disappear, so I decided to take a step back from social media because it became a very negative place. It was in that time that I found what truly mattered in my life… my friends and my family.
They helped me through such a rough time and my friendships really started to flourish. While Covid and the world shutting down really sucked, I am thankful for how it affected my overall mental health and my appreciation for life. I learned to appreciate what I did have instead of what I didn’t, and to not let other people’s opinion determine how I feel about myself. I have so much more confidence and carry my head so much higher. Social media has a lot of great aspects, but sadly, some people use it to bring people down with negative comments. And to me it wasn’t worth it to see the little bit of good still happening in the world shadowed by negativity and gloom. What I really needed was motivation and encouragement and I wasn’t going to find that by scrolling on Instagram. My friends and my family became that for me when I desperately needed it. And if it wasn’t for them, I don’t this past year would have brought the same amount of success and happiness.
Author’s Note: This essay was very challenging because I did not know what to write about. I really just sat and thought about what social media meant to me and how that has really changed over the last year or so, and that is what I decided to write about and share:)
