Need a good grade for English?! This speech on social media guarantees you a good grade
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Course
Engels
Level
VWO / Gymnasium
This document contains the written text of my self-written speech/presentation I gave in vW.6. I received and 9.5 for content. The speech is about the disadvantages of social media on a teenager, but also on the older and younger generations.
What is the first thing people do when they wake up? Brush your teeth.. the correct answer is check
your phone. According to a recent study by IDC research, 80% of smartphone users check their phone
within the first 15 minutes of waking up. Social media is something most kids, teens and some adults
are using all the time. And is has become part of our generations lives. During the spring of 2020,
most of the world dealt with some level of social distancing due to a disastrous pandemic. But social
media came to our rescue when looking at social connections and relationships. Suddenly all social
platforms became the lifelines to the outside world. The fear of losing connections to our friends,
family and even society as a whole is real. The idea of deleting social media after all of the un-warned
situations we’ve been in last year, seems out of reach.
That is why I want to stress 4 of the most common stressors on social media
1. Highlight reel
This is the collection of our best moments. Social media in fact, is our highlight reel. Because this is
where we only put the pictures we look great in, our wins, our lovely moments. This can cause others
to feel insecure about themselves. Because just like Steven Furtick, who is an professional author and
public speaker, said “We struggle with insecurities because we compare our behind the scenes with
everyone else’s highlight reels”. And yes, this of course already happened before social media, for
example with television or good looking celebrities. However, in today’s world this comparing is
happening all the time and it is directly linked at you. We only post the good moments that happen in
our lives, because the highlights are what people want to see. In fact, when your highlights do well,
you encounter the second stressor of social media.
2. Social currency
Which is number two: social currency. Just like the Euro, a currency is something we use to attribute
value to a good or service. When looking at social media, the comments, the likes and the shares have
become this form of social currency by which we attribute value to something. In marketing we call
this “the economy of attention”. However, the problem with social media is that WE are the product,
and we are letting others tribute value to us. You probably all know or are someone who took down a
photo because it did not get as many likes as you thought it would: and I will admit that I have been
right there with you. We took our product off the shelf because it was not selling fast enough. And the
problem is that we are losing our sense of identity performing actions like this. We are tying up our
self-worth of what others think about us and then we are quantifying it for everyone to see. And we are
extremely obsessed with it. We are even so obsessed with it that we biological responses when we are
not able to participate.
3. FOMO
Which leads me to the final stressor of social media, number three: FOMO. We might joke about
FOMO, or the “fear of missing out:, but it is an actual social anxiety from the fear that you are missing
a potential connection or opportunity. Humans are social creatures. You can define yourself as an
introvert all you want, but deep down most of us desire social relationships. And when we find such a
relationship, we want to be present or at least know most of the things that are happening, and we
certainly do not want others to have fun without us being there. Previous to the internet, we hardly
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