I believe social media’s net effect on humans is bad. It appeals to all the bad human features and none
of the good human features. According to Mark Zuckerberg and other proponents, it was supposed to
be all good and no bad. Putting the world’s 7 billion people in direct communication would eliminate
future wars because people who knew each other on a one-on-one personal basis would never go to
war and kill each other. The reality turned out different. Regardless of how well people communicate,
they still have irreconcilable differences in religious beliefs, culture, history and economics.

Putting the world’s 7 billion people in direct communication was supposed to eliminate human nasty
bad behavior because people would be ashamed of revealing their nasty behavior. The reality is that
people say bad things to each other on social media they would never say face-to-face. They seem to
feel anonymous and unaccountable for what they say on social media. Social media was supposed to
eliminate our reliance on professional media, radio, television, newspapers because every human with a
smart phone would become a volunteer, eyewitness reporter. The reality is that the volunteer
eyewitness reports are inaccurate and unreliable. Even radio-TV-newspapers now rely on volunteer
reporters rather than professional staff. I often recognize grossly inaccurate reports on radio, TV and
newspapers.

Throughout 5,000 plus years of recorded human history, there have always been “wanabe” celebrities
who crave constant attention, recognition and envy of others and “snoops” who are obsessed with
knowing every intimate detail about others lives. They were limited to one “snoop” spying on one
“wanabe” celebrity. Social media provides the technology for one “wanabe” celebrity to have thousands
or millions of fans envying every intimate detail of their lives: What they wear, see, eat or do. The social
media sites are so popular that they sell ads for large fees that make them rich.

The fans become so obsessed they lose their self-image. For example: At the gym on a treadmill one
time, I stood next to a lady who told her life story to a lady on her other side. She related every
significant event in her life: birth date, high school graduation, wedding, and birthdate of each child to
what some celebrity did on that date. In her mind and self-image, she didn’t exist except to the extent
she could relate to a celebrity.
Social media is especially damaging to the lives of young people: bullies target individuals with threats,
intimidations, lies and ridicule.