Growing up, we all learn about human morals. Perhaps in the past, though, it was easier to follow what was "considered right and good by most people, or agreeing with a standard of right behavior" (Merriam-Webster). I believe that the increased use of social media today has created an internal struggle to uphold these morals. Social media usage has increased so much so that, "7% of adults were tracked using social media in 2005, and just ten years later, a whopping 65% adults in 2015" (Perrin).  It is not surprising that "90% of people ages 18-29 were tracked on social media in 2015" (Perrin). What I've noticed with these increasing statistics is that despite the morals instilled in us at an early age, social media has taken over those beliefs and is strongly influencing how we live our lives. In fact, I believe that it is even causing us to contradict our own morals. Suddenly, in a short period of time, social media has transformed society because even when adults encourage us to do things like be ourselves, not judge ourselves or others, read to gain knowledge, and connect emotionally with others, social media is still causing us to turn our backs on them. I'm not blaming any one person for this shift in society, but I do strongly believe that this is how social media is influencing us social media users. With social media, we find ourselves seeking approval from others, judging how others present themselves, hiding the truth about ourselves, only exposing our ideal selves, getting caught up on how many 'likes' we get, and so on, and so forth. Do these actions align with anything we were taught as kids? No. We're being pulled away from what is "considered right and good by most people" (Merriam-Webster), and I think that it's only going to get worse so long as social media participation and misuse continue to rise. It's like we have these morals in the back of our minds, but we're not following them because something more important, or more powerful is taking that position. That thing, in my eyes, is social media.

I do realize and appreciate the positives that can come out of social media usage, as well. As an active user, I enjoy the benefits of staying connected with and updated on my friends and family on a daily basis. I also enjoy getting quick spurts of information about what's going on around the world. On the other hand, though, I fear more about the negatives that come from social media. Social media usage is causing us to contradict our own human morals, and is doing this by allowing us to falsely represent ourselves, pass quick judgment, lack emotional connection, and to lose our desire to read.

In terms of its history, social media agreeably began in 1997 with a website called Six Degrees, which "allowed users to create a profile and then friend six other users. From this the internet developed into the era of blogging and instant messaging" (Terrel). Continuing on the timeline, the next best thing was 2003's MySpace and then soon after, LinkedIn. Later, in 2004, Mark Zuckerberg "launched what would soon become the social media giant that would set the bar for all other social media services. Facebook is the number one social media website today and it currently boasts over a billion users" (Terrel). In 2006, Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, Noah Glass and Evan Williams created Twitter and "today, Twitter has over 500 million users" (Terrel). Around 2010 came the rest of the pack, like Instagram, Flickr, and Pinterest. Also, "One of the things that started happening right in this time period was that social media not only became widely used, it also became widespread in business" (Terrel). Today, we see thousands of social media platforms, all a little different than the next, allowing there to be something for everyone to enjoy. We also see that "humans are social animals and the more ability to communicate with each other on the level that each person likes best, the more prevalent social media will become" (Terrel).

Before looking at social media usage in the future, let's observe the negative effects of it right now. One of the main reasons that I believe social media is contradicting human morals is that it allows, and somewhat encourages, us to expose false representations of ourselves. By false representations I don't mean that we take on a whole new identity, even though that is possible; I mean that we tend to only share our ideal lives, rather than exposing any of our flaws. 

As research suggests from a Huffington Post article, "your 'real self' is what you are - your attributes, your characteristics, and your personality. Your 'ideal self' is what you feel you should be; much of it due to societal and environmental influences" (Green). Sometimes we sugar coat the things we don't like about our lives and make ourselves appear much more appealing than we actually are in real life. In Graham's TedTalk, she noticed that, "We present an ideal life, perfect parenting and great relationships. We hardly ever give any bad news about ourselves because that doesn't make for a lot of likes" (Graham). This idea of likes in a way defines self-worth for people. Where did our morals about loving ourselves go? We are allowing social media to destroy them. 

Graham even showed a picture of a small, innocent, average looking cat and says, "Here's what we really are," and then shows a picture of a big, attractive, fierce lion and says, "This is what we present on Facebook" (Graham). This example reiterates the idea that we're no longer focusing on loving, appreciating, and accepting ourselves. We're now trying to be somebody or something that we're not. Green, from the Huffington Post article also notes that, 

"Everything about your online persona should be reflective of your offline persona i.e. your background, experience, education, etc. Rather than focusing your attention and effort into creating an ideal online persona, use your time and effort to accomplish the goals that will align your real self with your ideal self. By doing so, you will ultimately become more fulfilled as you accomplish the goals that will lead to your path to self-actualization i.e. becoming the best you... the 'real' you" (Green). 

This perspective sits well with me because Green is referring back to our human morals about sharing our real selves with the world and focusing on how important it is to reach self-actualization.

Another way that social media is causing us to contradict our morals is that it negatively impacts our ability to emotionally connect with other people. For example, from personal experience and observation, people are no longer texting their friends as much or picking up their phones to talk to someone. Now, they simply check up on their friends through social media. The flaw there is that there's no emotional connection through an Instagram 'like' for example. Even if you comment, "OMG so pretty Stacey," you're complimenting your friend, but not connecting with them any further or having a conversation with them. A study even showed that 'if you only interact with people through short bursts of information,' it is harder to gauge the emotional effect of what is being said" (Preface to ... "). To build off of that, according to the Pew Internet report, in 2009, "6 percent of the entire U.S. population did not have anyone with whom they could discuss important matters with in their life" (Cross 128). That was only in 2009, when social media was much less developed than it is today. Imagine what this statistic for 2016 will be.

Additionally, in an April 14, 2009, Daily Mail article, Jenny Hope reports on a scientific study that suggested that, "Twitter and Facebook might make their users immoral. Scientists at the University of Southern California, Hope explains, had found that the quick news flashes and updates of social media sites move past too quickly for the brain to process morally" ("Preface to ... "). This caused the scientists to worry that social media users might become "indifferent to human suffering, because they do not have time to fully understand the moral aspects of the information they receive, or to empathize with those who are suffering" ("Preface to ... "). I see this as a huge issue that is overlooked because given that people scroll through social media feeds so fast, it is inevitable that it will be harder to connect with more people on a deeper level.

On the contrary, this article also says, "People may respond less morally while on social media. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that social media is making formerly moral people less moral" ("Preface to ... "). Although I agree with this stance, I also think that it's important to acknowledge the roots of what is actually being said. This stance agrees with me that social media is diminishing our human morals. Although without social media we may be upholding our morals, when we are on social media, we are acting less morally, and this is a problem because time spent on social media is just increasing over time. This behavior could result in diminishing human morality and question people's authenticity in real life.

Social media is also contradicting our values associated with reading. Growing up, and still today, people widely accept the idea that the more you read, the more knowledgeable you become, or the better writer you'll become. Unfortunately, though, social media is steering us away from this. In the article, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?", the author says that "users are not reading online in the traditional sense; indeed, there are signs that new forms of "reading" are emerging as users "power browse" horizontally through titles, contents pages and abstracts going for quick wins" (Billout). I, as an active social media user, can agree that I skim read through my newsfeeds and most information from the internet. On the other hand, before social media was a part of my life, I had a much bigger desire to read up on something happening in the world so that I could become more knowledgeable about it. Billout uses the metaphor, "Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski", which perfectly describes how I feel about my reading habits and how social media has influenced me (Billout). 

In return, it's also evident that practicing this type of disconnected reading carries into reading in real life too. Billout says, "the internet supplies the stuff of thought, but it also shapes the process of thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles" (Billout). So, where did our values about reading go? I'm sure the majority of social media users can agree with Billout when he says, "Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, and begin looking for something else to do. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle" (Billout). Seeing as though I grew up in the time period that social media was just beginning to develop, it's easy to see the difference in how easy and prevalent reading was when I was even just in middle school, compared to how it is today.

Since social media usage is causing us to contradict our own human morals by allowing us to falsely represent ourselves, pass quick judgment, lack emotional connection, and to lose our desire to read, then what should we do about this? Well, we know that social media is on the rise and inevitably will continue in the upcoming years, but we don't yet know how it is going to influence social media users and their morals. According to an "Inc" article, the author says that, "Social media is changing rapidly. We are going from a world of simply tweeting about our cat, to deducing that information to create more impactful and tailored messages. This wave will transform the way we think of social, and hopefully impact the world for the better" (Agrawal). I also agree that "hopefully" social media will impact the world for the better, but at this rate, with social media contradicting our own foundational morals, it's hard to see a lot more positivity coming from its use.

In a way social media is causing us to lose sight of what matters most in this world. Our morals are important, so why are we allowing social media to influence them so much? According to an old Cherokee chief parable, a grandfather, in teaching his grandson about life said, "There is a fight going on inside me. It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, self-doubt, and ego. The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith" ("Two Wolves ... "). The grandfather further explained that this fight is going on inside of every other person in the world too, so when the grandson asked which wolf would win, the grandfather replied, "The one you feed" ("Two Wolves ... "). This can be applied to my argument as well because we know that we should uphold our morals and that they're good and they're our "faith", but this other "envious, evil, ego", or social media, is fighting our morals. In the end, like the old chief said, the one who wins is the one you feed. In closing, if we are ALL aware of this "fight going on inside of us", then we can ALL be cognizant in feeding the good wolf  --  our morals ("Two Wolves ... ").

