Editor’s Note

Volume II, Issue 1

MySpace – which is more myth than company these days – was launched in 2003 and is considered the first social media company, and it was quickly followed by Facebook in 2004 (2006 was when Facebook opened up its platform to non-college students). Since then, we have seen the rise of social media giants like Twitter (2006), Instagram (2010), SnapChat (2011) and TikTok (2016), among others. Meanwhile, today’s traditionally-aged college students made their own “launches” in the years between 2001 and 2006, which means they have lived in a world dominated by social media for nearly their entire lives.

In the last two decades, social media has often been celebrated as this democratic force. Facebook united friends and families who couldn’t visit each other in “real life,” Twitter has been deemed an important activist technology because of its role in the Arab Spring and Black Lives Matter, and all of these platforms have been credited with providing marginalized individuals with online communities. However, this “halo-effect” has started to lose its sheen. More and more studies are showing the negative impacts of social media on users’ social, emotional, and even physical well-being, increasing feelings of depression, anxiety, and body dysmorphia, to name a few (and not to mention their roles in surveillance and data collection).

This issue’s stories delve into the dark underbelly of social media. Its authors, so-called “digital natives,” bring their unique experiences and perspectives as people who not only grew up with social media, but also relied heavily on it during the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, it was their experiences during the pandemic that truly highlighted the risky nature of social media use. In their stories, they describe in sometimes painful, but always genuine, detail the role social media has played in their social lives and their well-being. They adeptly balance the immense benefits of social media with its awful pitfalls, but in the end, they confirm our suspicions – social media is not good for us. These are their stories – enjoy!

Jeramy Wallace 

Editor, The People’s Stories