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The following post is based on Jaron Lanier's article?Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts.

Social media is an amazing tool for people to connect and network. Yet, the advent of its mass usage has made people vulnerable to mass advertising and media campaigns and many hack/crack attacks that make people's data vulnerable. According to a report published by Search Engine Journal, Billions utilize the world's most popular social networking platform for various reasons.

1. 2.89 billion people use Facebook.
2. 2.29 billion people on YouTube
3. 2.00 billion people on WhatsApp
4. 1.39 billion people use Instagram

Mobile phones have been around for about approximately ten years. However, in that time, humanity has come to accept the ubiquitous surveillance and subtle manipulations that appear on your mobile screen as entirely natural.

If you're on social sites, you get tiny jolts of dopamine. Your mind tells you to keep clicking, scrolling and commenting.

Researchers have discovered that social media websites are altering your thinking, interpersonal relationships, and capability to focus.

Social media allows us to bring strangers to bed; let me explain.?

Normally, we would be communicating with people in an environment surrounded by people. We might get into a closed private space with a few of them and may get intimate with one person.

Social media allows anyone to chat with anyone in a private mindset. Your chats are not as public as they were but also devoid of any physical/nonverbal clues. Rather than being in a traditional (formal) mindset, people are in a cozy mindset and are vulnerable psychologically. However, this has changed the dynamics of the conversations.?

It bought stalkers information about the person they would want to stalk and distanced people nearby.?

It makes me think how discussing ideas and concepts became out of trend, and talking about memes and other people(influencers) became normal.?

Social Media undermines the Best of Who You Are

According to Lanier, using social media alters your identity in three ways.

Firstly, online social media platforms bring out your worst qualities.

Secondly, they bring out the worst in people, altering your perception.

Finally, social media affects your ability to empathize.

Truth is undervalued on social media.

• People with no valid credentials who do their research on Social media misinformation turn the debate into a form of discharge, causing people to align with the groups they agree on rather than consider issues as individuals.
• Readily available porn dilutes your concentration and plants your mind with feelings and ideas that don't exist in your rational brain.
• Tech corporations worm their way into your life, enticing you to give up your privacy for increased surveillance.
• Content is shoved down your throat by social media platforms. Content that is meticulously tailored to alter your tastes.
• Online platforms focus on what is most profitable for you to see,?restricting your exposure to alternative viewpoints.
• Influencers and advertisers earn money by figuring out the best ways to?modify your behavior, so you'll buy their products.
• Fake people have no motive, and they will go to any length to avoid being held accountable.
• Bots rule the discussion and various groups whose sole purpose is to like and comment.

You're Unhappy Because of Social Media

Is it true that social media makes you happy? You might believe that the answer is yes. Why would you keep monitoring your accounts if you weren't getting something in return? Isn't social media supposed to make you feel more connected to others?

On the contrary, studies reveal that social media users are more lonely and depressed than their non-social media counterparts.

Facebook has boasted in newspapers that it knows how to display people's unhappy content without realizing it.

If that weren't enough, people frequently grow depressed when comparing their life to the gleaming images offered by friends or famous people. These feeds make users feel insecure and more prone to advertisements. Hence people are buying because they are insecure that they are being left out of trends or 'pursuing the material world goals.'

Sit down and, breathe, look around. The world is beautiful. Yeah, many things are wrong with the world right now. No one can say that social media and misinformation are not responsible for it.?

Also, with the ar and many political movements going around in the world, it's high time to look up and question where this digital wonder has led us.?

Refrences,

Ashavidya, Kusuma. (2020). "The Effects of Social Media on Young People."

https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2018/05/31/teens-social-media-technology-2018/

https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2021/04/07/social-media-use-in-2021/