The Social Media Purge: Enlightened, Arrogant, or Something Else?

      I’m the type of person that uses social media daily, probably more often than I would like to admit. It is something that draws me in; the friends, the makeup artists, the pictures, and of course, the memes. It helps me to escape my life and view things that I enjoy and can laugh about. I don’t think there will ever be a time that I will stop using social media. However, there are those that do, which they often refer to as a social media purge. It may be only for a short time or it could be forever. Is this purge completely stupid and useless? Absolutely not.

      Social media can be a dangerous place for those that struggle with mental illness, bullying, uncertainty, lack of self-love, and so much more. People are often viewing the positive things in other people’s lives, and they wish they could have a life more like those people. For many people, politics is a heart-wrenching and anxiety-increasing platform. It is almost impossible to escape this on social media and for some people, it can be too much to bear. They have enough personal struggles and they do not want to see all the terrible things happening in our world. This can push people further into depression and anxiety, making it even more difficult to live their everyday lives.

      For some people, it may just be that they are uninterested in social media. They would rather spend their time enjoying real-life relationships, participating in events, practicing hobbies, etc. Social media can be a time-consuming platform that people would rather not participate in. There have also been many studies done on how social media affects the brain and certain people are concerned about these ideas. Studies show that the use of too much social media can make people less-likely willing to read books or articles that are long, because they are used to short posts. The studies also show that our memory is affected in that, we do not remember things as well as we could. With easy access to information, we are quick to look up facts and ideas, without the effort of remembering them for the future. This can be a scary concept and keep people away from using social media too much.

      Whatever the reason may be for someone to stay off of social media, it doesn’t matter to anyone else. It saddens me that people are shamed for purging social media, whatever their reason is. We often do not know the struggles that people face, whether it be because of friends, family members, work environments, or world issues. Instead of putting people down for not using social media, we should be encouraging them to better live their lives however they wish to. It is a personal matter and if they believe that the lack of social media is good for them, then so be it. We don’t know everyone’s story or reasons for choosing how they live their life, so we shouldn’t be so quick to judge.