Kelsey McGovern, Staff Writer

In our current world surrounded by social media, our brains are being starved. Social media has warped our perception of ourselves. In order to feed your brain, it needs to be given free range for creativity–not confinement to your feed. Doomscrolling may give you instant distraction from your life, but it pulls you into someone else’s. Another person’s online life that looks perfect causes you to desire their life, maybe even become obsessive, causing mental health issues. Unhappiness results when you realize you can’t copy your favorite Instagram influencer’s life because it is not real.

Comparison is highly encouraged on social media. You begin comparing yourself to peers or models, resulting in a distorted self-image. You begin to look at what post will receive the most likes, allowing your viewers to be in control of your life. External validation becomes more important than self-worth.

Social media consumes our lives, causing us to not reflect on what we actually need and want. We want to follow others, lacking self-responsibility and leadership. When someone copies someone else, it could be because they admire them. Or, it could be because they have no idea what they truly want. Trends cause people to indulge in uniformity. Clothes and even self-expression are adopted as their own. Personalities become diminished when you attempt to constantly fit in. As younger children are now on social media, they do not have the chance to form who they truly can be. They are fed ingenuine content, making them believe this is how they can fit into the world.

Social media makes it incredibly easy for people to never tap into their own creativity. They are able to do exactly what their favorite influencer tells them to do. They begin to have no knowledge of themselves; the same way you are curious about someone you love should be the same way you are curious about yourself. When you reach a life-altering point, you will not know what to do. Alix Earle cannot tell you what you actually want in life. Only you can do that.

Instead of doomscrolling all day, pick up a book. Opinions should be formed without influence from others. Gen Zers may be more informed on political events and mental health than other generations, but they lack self-identity. We must recognize that self-identity is decreasing. Humans will begin performing like robots because they have no autonomy. Leadership will therefore decline.

In class, how many people do you see scrolling on TikTok? People should be more concerned about their education. College students should want to accumulate as much knowledge as possible. By learning more about how the world functions, you are able to form ideas about how you want your own life to function, and that cannot be done through others. Every individual should analyze their relationship with themselves. Allow yourself to engage in full creativity without needing approval from a celebrity. You are the only one who can make your life decisions. It is better if you learn how to do that now.

Philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, in his use of leveling, explains this by saying that we pretend to do things, such as learning, but only to make everyone think we are, without actually learning. Kierkegaard believes a writer should write for himself, not for his audience. On social media, people present distant or artificial versions of themselves instead of actually becoming the person they want to become. Most people do not want to be different or search for meaning because they would have to make decisions. Kierkegaard’s use of leveling allows individuals to recognize their own lives of action, hoping that readers will understand they must make decisions, take responsibility and ultimately find themselves inwardly through authenticity.