Social media can be hard to navigate, with things like cancel culture and microtrends riddling every post. In recent history, the internet has become somewhat of a paradox. People have been posting to huge audiences about their “quiet lives” that consist of pretty unrealistic things like 30-minute screen times. Phones and social media have been baked into our day-to-day lives and people posting on their public social media accounts about how they don’t use social media is becoming another thing to draw people in.
It’s possible to use social media platforms in healthy ways. Referring to social media platforms as one giant conglomerate almost feels unfair; the world of social media is so vast. For a lot of people, social media is more than capable of being healthy, it really depends on how people use it. Because social media is able to be so broad and unpredictable, it’s not difficult to consume unhealthy content without intending to and sometimes people fall into rabbit holes of content that’s not good for them. With that, it also becomes very possible to crack the algorithm and find the most amazing things ever. All of these elements pose the question: Can social media be healthy?
Unhealthy content, for example, content regarding misinformative news, content made to scare people, or posts regarding personal topics like body weight or beauty comparison, are all things that are relatively easy to make and they draw attention immediately. Habits that include “doom-scrolling” lead to the unhealthy side of social media and scrolling on social media is an easy filler for other activities.
On the contrary, the bright, positive sides of the internet are contagious once discovered. There are parts of certain platforms that hold such eye-opening content that it becomes hard to want to look back at the other things. Pinterest or Substack, two platforms that are made entirely for creative exploration, are some of the most community-building platforms that people can use. The entire point of social media is representation; it has created a whole new understanding of what it means to be connected. Social media has brought the promise that people can pick up their phone and easily find someone who looks like them, doing something that they love and being recognized for it.
What’s healthy or unhealthy is subjective. And the truth is, there are plenty of unfortunate things about social media. But at some point, unhealthy content consumption becomes a choice. For every negative, attention-drawing thing with millions of views, there’s a handful of calm and positive things that were posted solely for people to see and feel good about. The lack of “healthy content” simply comes from the lack of looking for it. So, will you doom scroll again today? Or is it time to look for something better?
