I won't be the first to write about this topic neither will I be the last so if my points seem over beaten to you, sorry. I'm sharing this with readers that are curious about this Social Media Age. There are loads of perils of Social Media (hereafter labelled SM) and just like every other thing, there are also good parts to it. I've come to understand that this current generation, my generation, have abused the use of SM to the point that it's now a downward spiral unless you break out of the stereotypic way to use SM. Let me start with the dangers then end with the pros.

Dangers of SM

• Gives one a false entitlement: Because someone has a high number of followers, he/she begins to feel he/she has "arrived". They think they have power when in reality, once they've logged out, they don't matter to these followers. Loads of confidence damage starts to occur, I wrote about Confidence yesterday, because they've put so much false value on the amount of followers they have or the amount of likes they get when they post a picture/status. Not only that, they feel their "LIKE" is so powerful if they mistakenly use it, it would show their weakness. 

• Creates an illusion cloud: Aside from giving you a false entitlement, you dwell in an illusional reality and live a second life on SM. You'd be friends with someone in person but on social media, they are someone else. In reality, they are unemployed but on social media, they work with Dangote and earn One million Naira every two weeks. Or someone that is shy in person, writes on social media very bold things they'll never say in reality. It's like alter egos are formed on SM.

• Shows stereotypic ways to live: Someone will just wake up and write on SM that your significant other should always rub your feet in the morning as a good morning greeting and you too you will vex for your partner when they don't do that. Or the funniest one, I saw a post where the writer wrote what you should have achieved at a particular age. Imagine an unstable person reading that and say to him/herself that (s)he's a failure because at the current age, they haven't achieved anything on the list and in return, commit suicide. Another good one is engagement ring size, there's been loads on debate on reasons why a lady should not say yes to a ring with a 'stone' not as huge as Olumo rock. If you are not in the stereotype clique, you feel you are abnormal, which is true anyway (You were not created to be just like everyone else)

• Easy to compare yourself to others: You see everyone you follow post something great about themselves but you are in a down season and you feel God has failed you and start asking if those people have four heads (well they have foreheads..ahah gerrit?). It is very easy to compare your life to others on social media. You are single and all your married friends have been featured on BN and even though you attended the weddings and posted aso-ebi pictures on IG, Bella still didn't feature you in the aso-ebi version of your friends' weddings. You begin to feel there's nothing else to do right, after all you wanted future hubby to notice you on the gram or on Bella. In the process of comparing yourself, you give up on yourself. tsk tsk.

• Tempting to wash your dirty linen on SM: Most times we post the glamorous parts of our lives but there will be some particular moments we just want to rant and while ranting, say more than we are supposed to. That is the story of some people lives, on twitter especially. For the sake of retweets, you expose your weakness to the world and most times, it is usually late to retract as someone could have taken screenshots of your rants. Sometimes, it's not even us causing direct damage to ourselves but indirectly by "calling someone out". Social media fights are very common. It is the process of using one's keyboards to type nonsensical words in a bid to ruin another's reputation, which can also be for the sake of gaining popularity through RTs and likes. People would rather call out someone in public than go to the person in private and solve the issue at hand. There was a time the fights were entertaining and I won't blame those of us that are on SM for the entertainment but when I realized I was wasting my time for the sake of bad entertainment, I stopped. 

• Cyberbullying: Just like the above mentioned point, people that won't have the nerve to say rubbish to you will use social media to attack you in demeaning ways and for the weak minded, they fall for it and fall into depression or worse, commit suicide.

• Internet never forgets: It is never just social media. In this technology age where back ups (and screenshots) are not difficult to do and every social media has a cloud where messages are stored, it shouldn't be surprising to know that messages can always be retrieved. I mean, there's a thing called Memories on Facebook and sometimes I see my statuses from years ago, I'm like "did I really write that" and quickly delete it before a memory digger (stalker, also a danger of SM) digs deep into my profile. We think Social Media is just for bants until you realize the creators of these platforms are billionaires while you, the user, use SM for nothing productive.