Is Social Media A Help Or A Hindrance?

The insidiousness of social media can be encapsulated in the seemingly innocent selfie. Empowering! Identity-affirming! Fun! Weird how the moment I started taking selfies, I started being hyper-critical of my face isn't it? When Facebook arrived, I de-tagged at the speed of light, unable to cope with the amount of photos I was seeing of myself. Our brains aren't supposed to see our bodies that much, guys. Now, IG filters leave us disappointed with our reflections. The Kardashian face is embedded into our subconscious. I don't even feel it anymore, but I know it's there, because of how I felt when it first arrived. I'm trying to make the point that there is a price for every benefit. How can any of us make healthy choices when faced with such a powerful dopamine-based reward system? How can we trust our motivations when they're carefully controlled by billion-dollar companies relying on our addiction to make money?

@5teviem

I hate how difficult it's become to log off. It demonstrates a lack of control. Gina tries to delete apps in the evening and re-download them the next morning, my friend puts her phone in a cupboard all night, another has her partner hide it from her, I obsessively track my average screen time. All this smacks highly of “I CAN STOP ANYTIME I WANT!” But social media is normalised. It's got me. I get my news from it, I educate myself, I look at fun pictures of dogs; my screen time is only going to keep increasing. Which is why I will always hate it.

I don’t know what I’d do without social media. It’s has been such a huge part of my life, since the week I left university in 2013 and scuttled onto a £5 Megabus from Leeds to London to start my first unpaid internship (of many). I was taught how and why it worked, how to use it and what it was going to do to industry and society. For the next six years I spent my time coming up with ideas that lived across both billboards and Instagram feeds. I looked after big brand accounts that had millions of followers and figured out why people responded in certain ways to the social content I put out. It turns out social media is just marketing, combined with psychology.

@ginamartin

But, can I get off my phone? No. I have to delete my apps for a day at a time. Do I feel pressure? Yes. Is it messing me up? Maybe. But for now, the good outweighs the bad. The ‘influencer’ model is changing and ripping at the seams, and I’m proud to be on the right side of it. Learning, making mistakes and posting as I go.

Stevie and Gina Martin’s new weekly podcast series Might Delete Later, dissecting all things social media, is available to listen here.