Dear 10 Year Old Self…
A glimpse into your virtual future
Right now, you probably associate social media with Facebook and Google Buzz. You spend little time online and instead are curious about the physical environment around you. I urge you to keep this spark of curiosity alive because in the coming years, the magnetic force of social media will only become stronger. As you grow up, you will watch social media grow exponentially faster than you. It will become more powerful than you and will at times consume you. I don’t want to scare you, but this is a reality I must prepare you for. So, consider this letter your shield. Use it wisely my dear, and learn from my mistakes.
Perfect Illusions
At 11, you will come into contact with Instagram and Snapchat, and immediately be in awe of this world that radiates illusions of perfection. Instagram will amplify the perfectionist in you because it will entice you to share stories and pictures polished to the nth degree. A major source of anxiety will come from influencers — super inflated life-gurus with a thin veneer of glitter, enabled by a greed for celebrity — who influence your desire to match their unattainable images of perfection. You are prone to fall prey to the social comparison theory, as it is the default of the human condition to compare yourself to others. As you exercise your thumb to scroll through a feed of hyper-edited content, you will become a victim of the “highlight reel”. You will experience the highlight reel effect because as you interact with the self-enhanced images, you will find there is always something better to compare yourself to. Thus, it is unfortunately inevitable that you will feel depressed after spending a great deal of time on social media.
At 14, social media will teach you the pains of FOMO. As you watch the lives of others unfold before your eyes, it will exacerbate feelings that others have a better life than you. Heightened levels of FOMO will trigger a more addicting relationship with social media as it will motivate you to continuously check-up on your followers’ activity to relieve anxiety. At 14, You will find yourself sitting in your bedroom alone, scrolling through activities you wish you were doing.
The Virtual Drug
Some will fall into the dark hole of cocaine, alcohol, or prescription pills, but your drug will be social media. You won’t need breaks from the relationships with your boyfriends and girlfriends, instead, yours will be from your addictive relationship with social media. Indeed, everything we do is governed by our brains’ neurochemical reactions. Today, when we hear a ‘bing’ notification sound from receiving a like, a comment, or a DM, a flood of dopamine infiltrates our nervous system, which drives us to instantaneously check our phone. Serotonin and oxytocin accompany dopamine in anticipation of this rewarding social media attention. This cycle fuels addictive patterns as social media rewards us with mood-enhancing chemicals. This mood and behaviour altering drug that is social media will therefore propel you to continuously chase the highs of the concoction of oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin as you exercise your selfies online.
At 15, you will have your first social media burnout. In a digital society, however, you will find that taking these breaks only amplify the feelings of loneliness. You will struggle to take breaks out of fear of missing out on news, of losing connections, and of being forgotten. Today, when people cannot access their social media accounts, they experience more profound levels of anxiety as they fear they are being socially excluded, which triggers a loss in belonging and feelings of loneliness.
Not only will social media become an addicting drug, it will also become a highly valued currency. As you grow to become my age, you will learn about a new economic genre: the attention economy. With the prominent growth of the internet, the primary scarcity in society has transitioned from information to attention. In an information-saturated market, those who generate the most profits are those who drive the most attention to their advertisements. The social media posts that garner the greatest engagement rates are those who are valued at higher prices by marketing teams. As you calculate the number of likes, comments, and shares you receive, you will utilize this quantitive data to value your self worth.
The Hypnotic Power of Social Media
At times, social media will be a never ending self-perpetuating cycle. At 16, you will find it is easier to turn to Instagram, Snapchat, Tumblr, and Youtube, to avoid dealing with your emotions. As you numb your emotions by hypnotizing yourself with social media content, it will become a tool to mask your problems. In turn, these feelings will worsen your symptoms of anxiety, causing you to turn to social media as a coping mechanism; the downward spiral pervades.
At 20, you will realize that social media platforms are designed to capture your attention and keep you cemented online. In fact, companies will profit from your addiction as your online activity is free labour to them. Companies will leverage your digital footprint and convert it into profits by feeding you with advertisements that target your emotions. Crazy, right? At times, you will feel like you are the puppet controlled by the strings of algorithms.
Ironically, social media will make you feel less connected to your friends. Certain friends will disappoint you as you discover their intention for going out is to produce content for their Instagram, Snapchat, or Youtube account instead of spending time with you. Even you will fall prey to this and will find it increasingly difficult to ground yourself in the present moment; but, I encourage you to fight the urge to hide behind your black screen and instead embrace the social butterfly in yourself. Remember, online interactions will never be as fulfilling and rewarding as those in-person.
In 2019, Facebook will announce its plan to build Horizon, a virtual universe made up of social environments such as the VrChat, Rec Room, Sports Bar VR, and AltspaceVR. In 2025, you will likely be able to meet people from around the world as you virtually immerse yourself in a shared environment. By 2020, social media will grow more dominant because it will assimilate the powers of artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and will soon adopt VR social platforms. As artificial intelligence, data analytics, and machine learning become more sophisticated, algorithms will become more accurate for each online user. Hence, in 2020, your feed will be incredibly personalized and polarized.
The Infodemic
In March 2020, at 21, when you are hit with the COVID-19 pandemic, you will be stripped from daily social interactions, and your world will shift online. This is not the only pandemic you will encounter, for you will come across an infodemic: the misinformation phenomenon during the out-break and beyond. You will find that Youtube and Twitter provide access to a mountain of content that fuels conspiracy theories and misinformation. Since social media is built on algorithms, it will place you in a bubble of people who share the same views. I urge you to look beyond your bubble and challenge your views; when polarization is high, one becomes susceptible to misinformation. Be cautious of the news you are exposed to my dear, because in today’s algorithmic world, inaccurate information travels faster than fact-based news.
Safe Social
In middle school they will teach you about safe sex. In university, however, they will teach you about safe social in order to encourage you to navigate the online realm in a safe manner. Indeed, just like sex, social media presents risky behaviours as you expose yourself to the harms of addiction, comparison, FOMO, anxiety, and depression. In a few years, you will have your first glass of wine. In the same way you will learn to consume wine, it is important to consume social media in a way that satisfies your tastes and desires. Your social media must be coherent to your palette of values and energize your mind. Otherwise, in the same way you may blackout from poor drinking decisions, you will face a social media ‘blackout’ where you mindlessly scroll online and dissociate from your conscious threshold.
Your Social Media, Your Voice
Though I have shared a lot of information that may scare you for the future, social media will grow to become a healthy resource. In the social deprivations of multiple COVID-19 lockdowns, social media will be the tool that keeps you sane as you continue to express yourself online and connect with your friends. During this time, at 21, you will finally begin to use it as a tool to spread awareness, advocate for what you care about, and express your creativity. If you are reading this now, I urge you to use your social media platforms as a creative outlet and as a platform for activism as soon as you can. Do not use social media for vain and self-centred motivations, rather use it to positively influence those around you. It is your space to create your own brand — how do you want others to see you? What impact do you want to have on your followers? Finally, make sure to engage meaningfully online; use it to educate yourself with the right information in order to become a better ally, and practice social listening by actively listening to the voices of others in and outside of your bubble. Credible information is power.
So, my advice to you, 10 year old Romy, is to brace yourself for the turbulent journey of social media you will embark on in the next ten years. Yes, there will be moments where you feel the dark hole that is social media has eternally swallowed you, but these moments are fleeting. It takes time, maturity, and experience for one to use social media wisely and mindfully, but I promise you will get there. With every touch, share, post, and comment, you have the ability to build your own ecosystem of empowerment, inspiration, imagination, and individuality online. Defy the skewed belief that one must adhere to the illusion of perfection online. Disrupt this notion by molding your platforms into your unique silhouette of values, passions, and aspirations. Make your feed an inspiration to you and your audience. Be loud, bold, and impactful on and off-line.
Love always,
21 year old Romy
11.28.20
