Social media dilutes the authenticity of proper conversation and that is what I hate the most. You get fast news, funny memes, good discussion, alternative views and everything else. I get that, I understand it for the rights and wrongs of it. However it seems to me that either deliberately or otherwise, social media life is at least equally more important than real life. Especially so with millennials. There comes a point where you have to wonder where real life and online life overlap. There is a certain irony in that considering I'm typing this out on a forum, but forums and the likes of Twitter and Facebook are not exactly the same
You can always have too much of a good thing. Social media is a good example of that. It is seemingly more important for people to have likes and good comments on their statuses and pictures than it is to actually make a meaningful and positive impact on the community or indeed the world. You go to a restaurant and all you see are people clicking away on their phones or taking pictures of their meals. They'll then upload their pictures to social media platforms to essentially say 'Look at me, look how cool I am because I'm eating.' Great, well done you. There is nothing real about it to me. Most people who use social media in such a way to show themselves off are often very insecure or are raging narcissists. Don't get me started on people who 'check in' at the hospital or their local GP surgery with a comment about unwell they are feeling. They want attention. You can apply that logic to many aspects of social media. Attention, acceptance and wanting to be part of something that isn't entirely genuine.
Having said that, I do have a Twitter account. I don't Tweet often, I use it mainly to see updates in sports and politics. Often Twitter is now the source of breaking news, be it team news, goals, sackings, transfer deals. And with other news in the world you get updates from good sources first. It is good for that. But the likes of Instagram, Facebook and the like? No, please no. I got rid of Facebook a long time ago, Instagram I don't really understand anyway and Snapchat is something that is used for people to video and take pictures of their concert/night out/meal/dog taking a shit and show the world. Enjoy the moment. And as a recently shamed* comedian said in one of his shows about videoing things on your phone:'The resolution in real life is totally HD.' You don't need to constantly video things to show people what you are doing.
It tires me. This is the world we live in now, and it will only get worse and not better. I truly feel like I was born in the wrong age. What can you do? You adapt or you get left behind I suppose but the world is such a vastly difference place than it was a decade ago and technology and social media play a massive role in that being the case.
*Apologies for using him in light of the allegations against him, but his point is pertinent in my views on this subject. OJ Simpson was no less of a running back.