Learn too much.
In the age of the internet pretty much anything you could want to know is at your fingertips. Social media evolved this digital library by putting out everything you could ever want to learn about someone. This knowledge can be good and bad, but also very uncomfortable. Following a friend on Facebook could lead you to finding about their closeted views that clash strongly with yours. You could find out that your boss is bigoted, or rude. You could see pictures showing friends behaving in a way you would never expect of them. While knowledge isn’t good or bad, it’s just knowledge after all, it can effect the psyche in ways you don’t anticipate.
Popularity contest.
The world itself is one gigantic popularity contest. In real life we judge popularity based on how much money you might have, how many friends want to hang out with you, attention from the opposite sex, career goals — and so on. Now with social media we are even trying to become ‘popular’ on the internet. Now it matters how many likes you get on a post, how many followers you have, how many comments people post on your status. While being popular on social media is fine, it can hurt those who don’t get that same attention. We spoke about the U of M study that showed our addiction to attention, and when we don’t get it then we feel even worse.
