Jonas Doerr – Opinions Columnist

Are you sadder because of the apps on your phone? The easy answer would be no. Otherwise, why would we keep them? They help us stay connected with each other, they keep us in the loop, and they entertain us. Even one of my professors is often talking about how he loves certain cute goat videos on Tik Tok. Even if there are some harms, they would seem to be outweighed by the benefits.

And yet social media has some serious downsides. Donna Freitas interviewed hundreds of college students for her 2017 book The Happiness Effect and found that many could relate to a dark side of social media. They felt pressured to present a perfect persona online. They felt like they couldn’t be vulnerable online. Some were even bullied.

Since Freitas’ book was published only five years ago, we can probably draw some conclusions about the college students here now at Gustavus: Us. We still use the same apps mentioned in The Happiness Effect: Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Yik Yak. Although there might be some changes, we still deal with many of the same challenges.

Perhaps the most essential social media app to college students is Instagram. We can post idealized versions of our lives and filtered photos of our nights out with friends. It’s great to be able to turn one’s own life into a fairy tale, but at what cost?

We all know that employers can see our social media accounts. While that’s not true if you set your Insta on private, plenty of people still see everything. Users must filter what they post, or face the consequences. 

And when we filter what we say, one of two things happen. We might present a certain version of ourselves to show to others online. The harm in this is actually on the person posting. Instead of being authentic, they have to feel forced into a socially constructed box. You can’t just post a picture of you very enthusiastically reading the opinion section of the Weekly, unless that’s part of your brand and the picture is filtered just right and your face is angled perfectly. This makes us feel confined and inauthentic.

Or we take the easy way out and don’t post anything. On one hand, that’s great; we can just live life genuinely. But if we still keep using Instagram, it’s likely that we’ll still compare ourselves to everyone else online and feel pressure to keep up. 

Other social media platforms have issues too. Who uses Yik Yak at this point? People hungry for juicy gossip, people feeling extra hormonal, or worse. These things then get upvoted. If we get reinforced for mocking how Johnny Johnson folds his burritos, what does that teach us?

Snapchat might have less problems than other platforms. The disappearing messages and stories let people be more authentic, and it’s a great way to keep up with friends. Still, is it really a replacement for in-person friendship? At some point, sending pictures of one’s face to friends doesn’t constitute a real relationship.

Maybe the worst thing of all is that we are working for these companies. The only reason they can offer the apps for free is because we make money for them anyways. Showing us ads and then collecting data to show us better ads fills the bank accounts of companies rather quickly, and we have no say in the matter. Creating an account makes us their de facto servants. 

Since more time spent on the apps makes the companies more money, they have motivation only to make us stay on the app longer, not have a better experience. Instead of promoting healthy social media usage, it only benefits the app companies to chain us to their sites, which is most obvious on apps like Tik Tok where it’s nearly impossible to stop watching. This ought to be more than a little scary.

What should we do about it? There aren’t many good options. It’s usually illogical to stay off social media entirely; it does have its benefits. It would make it harder to stay connected with faraway relatives and friends.

But it could help to limit how we use social media. Instead of blankly staring at videos and pictures that we’ll forget in thirty seconds, we can enjoy gorgeous Minnesota fall weather. We can forge friendships with fellow students. We can leave our digital ‘jobs’ and regain the choice of how to live with our surroundings.

Some social media use is unavoidable. But let’s screen ourselves from our screens, and see what could change on our campus.