What If Social Media Never Existed?

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(Image via Public Domain Pictures)

Oscar Santiago Lucero, Writer

Have you ever wondered what the world would be like without social media? Social media was first invented in 1997 but then started to get popular in the early 2000s. The first popular app that started taking over the internet was Facebook. Over the years, more social media has started to be invented and grow over time such as Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and more.

If social media had never existed, then we would be living much differently. For example, instead of following trends that are in social media, we could dress however we want instead of trying to fit in with the crowd. Another example of this is we could’ve met people in person instead of using Instagram or other social media such as dating apps. Another way we would’ve lived if social media wasn’t a thing is we would’ve made plans to meet friends or family in person instead of messaging them or calling. For example, we wouldn’t find our old friends or family’s social media, so there is no way we could have any contact with them because we probably don’t have their phone number.

Another way we would be living the world without social media would be we would have fewer people with poor mental health. Social media impacts someone’s mental health because they compare themselves to others, or they see that they are missing out on something. This article states, Even if you know that images you’re viewing on social media are manipulated, they can still make you feel insecure about how you look or what’s going on in your own life.” This means that mental health back before we had social media was better than what we have in today’s world because now some people feel pressured to look good or be a certain way.

Social media is huge nowadays. However, if social media never existed, then we would have probably had more time throughout our day because social media ends up taking most of our time. This article states, ”On average, we spend 144 minutes, or two hours and twenty-four minutes, on social media but this number is just that in some places it’s up to way more but that’s just average.” What this means is that we have time to do things in our lives such as exercising or doing homework, but we spend most of our time on social media when we could go do something better for ourselves.

There are many other ways the world would be different without social media. However, if social media never existed, then many people would have to find a job doing something more practical than YouTube and other social media. If social media never existed during this pandemic, we would all be dying of boredom because we wouldn’t have Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok to distract. In conclusion, there would be many benefits to social media never having existed. However, we can’t deny that social media has some sort of impact on our lives. It could be because we use it for fun or we do it as a living, but either way, social media has grown a lot and there is no way of stopping it.