I’ll admit it. I’m part of the problem. Every single day, right as I head out the door for class, I put on my headphones and make sure I drown out the noise of traffic as I go to class. I sometimes find myself burrowed deep into my phone, only looking up if I need to. But simple actions like these are more harmful than we might think.

Social media makes it harder and harder to make the right choice. It’s hard to wake up in the morning and not scroll for an hour. It became even harder when the pandemic normalized choosing social media instead of real, human interaction. Social media use snowballs.

In my classes, it’s a rarity for any student to participate. The social anxiety has reached such a point that I had a professor cancel class because he was worried about our mental health. I can’t speak for other people, but I find it hard to concentrate on class with the insane volume of news. How can I concentrate on learning Python when I saw a video of someone getting shot, a conspiracy theory and a protest all in the span of five minutes?

I’m unsure if it’s social anxiety or a defeatist lack of desire, but professors often have to force students to participate to get a word out of students. In and of itself, non-participation isn’t an issue, but it’s a symptom of the underlying loneliness epidemic in the United States. Comfort and individual pleasure have replaced connection. Social media has become the main outlet for social interaction instead of the supplement it was intended to be.

Social media has had the opposite of its intended effect. Social media has served to divide, not connect. As is human nature, comparison is usual; the quote still stands, “comparison is the thief of joy.” I find myself hard-pressed to not go through someone else’s social media and not feel behind, even if they’re at another stage in life. It’s so easy to have a great day and ruin it in just five minutes.

Instead of treating these health crises as isolated situations, we must treat them as part of an overarching crisis. It’s hard to open up LinkedIn and not feel behind. The current job market has made it so everyone has to exaggerate almost everything they achieve to get ahead. Authenticity is made performative; it’s harder to figure out when someone is truly being genuine. It’s hard to believe when someone is truly struggling when they also have to portray a perfect life to their connections or followers.

These concerns all lead to the same root cause: a lack of authentic third spaces. Even in college campuses with an abundance of clubs and activities to do, most of them have a professional or social attachment to them. It’s hard to be genuine and vulnerable when doing so makes you feel behind. 

It’s fine and perfectly normal to not be selfless all the time. That is not what I am striving towards. Still, the numbers show that this increased sense of individualism created by social media and a constant need to compare is slowly withering away at what should be our main goal as a society: unity and progress.

It’s hard to keep a positive outlook when everything seems to be going wrong. Even then, isn’t hope most important precisely when all feels lost? Even if it’s complimenting someone on their shoes or holding a door open, being just a little bit kind can make someone’s day. 

Within all the senseless violence and indifference, the brave and just thing to do is to try and be the bigger person. A small action might quite literally save someone’s life.