comment: >
  
  I kinda agree? I've gotten a lot more shitty because of spending too much time on social media.
context: You seem to be conflating causation with correlation. Unless you do a controlled experiment where some people are randomly assigned to use social media and others are assigned not to. So we can't say that social media makes you a shitty person as people who use social media may be inherently different. >
  
  Right, your influences shape your personality and how you see the world. If you are given a lense by an algorithm that has a specific agenda where you act as a pawn, perhaps that is not shaping you into a good person, but maybe, a good consumer. >
  
  
  There have been countless studies proving that the more time you spend on social media, the lower your self-esteem
  
  Causality might go the other way: the worse someone's self esteem is, the more they spend time on social media.
  
  You are also bombarded with ads that try to convince you that your life will suck without \~this\~ product, advertised by the highest standard of beauty in a human specimen.
  
  That's true, but I'm not gullible enough to believe those ads. 
  
  you need to make pointed effort in order to discover and experience anything of real value and knowledge
  
  A funny meme makes me laugh. That brings happiness into my life. Happiness has real value.
  As for knowledge, Facebook has math and science discussion groups. University students also make study groups.
  
  you need to make pointed effort in order to discover and experience anything of real value and knowledge
  
  What do you mean by "highest selves"? >
  
  Good points, but you can't deny that you're actively improving your life in any way unless you're doing something directly educational or therepudic when using social media.  Highest self, is the best version of you. Surly when you envision the best version of you, they're not spending the amount of time the average person does scrolling on their phone. >
  
  
  unless you're doing something directly educational or therepudic when using social media.
  
  So you admit then that social media use on its own doesn't make you a shitty person, and that it can be used to make you a better person? >
  
  Social media use in any way, shape, or form, has harmful effects on a person's psyche, nomatter what the intent may be. You are exposing yourself to all of the aspects of the platform, even if you are trying to accomplish a specific goal in mind. Even if there may be positive aspects of social media, you are still not avoiding the negativity that surrounds that experience. If you are working to better yourself, you shouldn't be spending any time on social media platforms at all. Instead you should be interacting with people in the real world, reading a book, seeing a specialist, browsing content specific websites, or gaining hands-on experience off of the internet. >
  
  
  Social media use in any way, shape, or form, has harmful effects on a person’s psyche, nomatter what the intent may be.
  
  You’re contradicting your previous statement.
  
  You are exposing yourself to all of the aspects of the platform
  
  Not true.  With adblockers in place and careful selection of what you subscribe to, you can easily isolate yourself from harmful aspects of social media.
  
  Even if there may be positive aspects of social media, you are still not avoiding the negativity that surrounds that experience.
  
  Again, not true due to my statement above.
  
  If you are working to better yourself, you shouldn’t be spending any time on social media platforms at all.
  
  Like it or not, believe it or not, social media is an effective way to stay in touch with family.  Anyone who is working to better themselves must necessarily avoid a useful and easy way to maintain connection with family?  Sounds like bad advice.
  
  Instead you should be interacting with people in the real world, reading a book, seeing a specialist, browsing content specific websites, or gaining hands-on experience off of the internet.
  
  You can do all of those things and still use social media to keep up to date with your friends and family.
  It sounds to me like social media addiction is what you really have a problem with.  Social media, when used in moderation, can be beneficial or at least can be used without harm.  It’s just like how someone can have a few alcoholic drinks or some THC to help relax and enjoy an evening without causing health problems or getting into trouble. >
  
  I'm going to use some anecdotal evidence for my point, but please bear with me.
  r/Random_Acts_Of_Pizza
  I should be used to this sub by now, yet there's a key point that constantly amazes me. Posts flaired "offer." That a random stranger has the ability to provide a pizza and decides to gift to a stranger they probably have NO chance of ever interacting with past this exchange. The faith of "you need pizza, no questions asked, I trust you enough that you're true to your story." I strive for the day I am financially secure enough to post under the offer flair on that sub. Not to toot my own horn, not to feel better than others. Simply to know I am finally in a safer and more secure point in my life where I have the abundance to pass a bit of that security on to someone else.
  Buy Nothing Oceanside Community on Facebook. Now, there are numerous Buy Nothing communities but this was the first one I was ever in and it's shaped my whole mindset around the project. I was attempting to get to my parents for Christmas, but I'm fighting to gain proper employment and money is scary tight. In my province you need either snow tires or snow chains during winter months or it's a MASSIVE fine. So, in a desperate attempt to keep safe and avoid ticket, I reach out to my local group and ask to borrow a set of chains sized for my car. I had four different individuals offer me a set. To keep. No strings attached or questions asked.
  FuckYeahTransJoy which has carried over from Tumblr to Twitter to TikTok (say that five times fast?) This calling card of others hyping up an individual. When I first stumbled across it, back in my early days of transition, you were never the one to tag your own content with it. It wasn't so much a rule that people would attack you over to enforce. It was more a community culture thing where 99.999% of Trans folks are the least likely to give themselves a moment of hype. So when one felt brave enough to share the tiniest sliver of "hey, being trans and finally being allowed to be myself is actually kind of cool" there would be a bombarding of those in community commenting and hyping FuckYeahTransJoy. Because in a world that seems to quite often want us depressed and dead, being a happy trans individual is worth all the celebration.
  The capitalism OF social media is a goddamn plague, I'll agree on that. That's the root of the ad bombarding and the algorithm focus of some core strains of content. But it is a facet of an incredibly large community connection experiment we've all signed up for. And for the most part... I am blown away by how we're constantly working to manipulate that experiment for good. >
  
  Our definition of what being a “shitty person” entails might differ. I’d consider a “shitty person” to be along the lines of someone who like gleefully murders kittens or preys on the helpless. What you describe sounds more “sad” than “shitty”.
  I’d also argue that your arguments are more of an indictment against the insecurities of humanity as a whole than social media in particular. No family hangs a framed photo of a wife being actively beaten by her husband while their children recoil in terror on their mantle. Ads preying on human insecurities weren’t invented in tandem with Facebook—they were present in TV before that, and before that on radio, and before that in newspapers, etc. “Shouting into the void” is not a new phenomenon.
  The way you describe how people should be their “highest self” seems overly narrow and outside the bounds of practical reality. If social media disappeared tomorrow I don’t think most folks are going to be like “shit, I’m free, now I can read Leviathan!”. Barring the existence of social media they’re more likely to engage in a similar manner of relaxation and escapism. And who are you or I to ultimately pass judgment on what some stranger does in their leisure time? >
  
  Seems your statement is far to absolutist to be true. I use discord, a form of social media, to connect with people so I can play D&D online. How does this make my life worse or make me a shitty person? >
  
  D&D is a creative experience, and therefore good. It is a specific activity, and not your average social media experience of scrolling through a feed. >
  
  Which is what I mean when I say your statement feels too absolutist. There are obviously uses of social media which can be beneficial, and so ‘social media makes you a shitty person’ cannot be always true. In fact, I would suggest that the way people use social media is already influenced by the type of person they are. How can you be sure it is social media’s influence and not something which was simply exposed by access to social media? >
  
  Even if you're using social media for positive social interaction, it will never be as meaningful as in-person interaction. Nomatter what you're using the platform for, you are still exposing yourself to the various aspects of the platform; ads, algorithms to keep you on the app, and images and videos that you would not be exposed to otherwise. Social media takes away the complete focus on your goal in mind if you're using it for a specific purpose. If you were to achieve that purpose through other avenues, there is no doubt that the result would be significantly better than the one you would have achieved using social media as a medium. I suppose the title of this post was a bit brash, but my point is that use of social media, nomatter what the purpose of it is for each user, will only make the experience duller and less fulfilling than what you would have achieved with the same goal in mind navigating in the real world. >
  
  
  If you were to achieve that purpose through other avenues, there is no doubt that the result would be significantly better than the one you would have achieved using social media as a medium.
  
  I can tell you’ve never tried to organize an in-person D&D session then. I just want to pretend to be a wizard. I don’t need to be in the room with the people listening to me be silly. What I find unfulfilling and frustrating is having to cancel or reform groups constantly because life is complicated and people have a hard time committing to meeting up physically on a regular schedule. I found groups online to be much more fulfilling in that aspect because the volume of players and games makes it more likely that I can actually participate in the hobby when I desire. >
  
  You are litterally on social media right now >
  
  
  There have been countless studies proving that the more time you spend on social media, the lower your self-esteem.
  
  Maybe I'm off on this one, but I feel like someone having low self-esteem doesn't make them a shitty person.
  
  This makes perfect sense, considering that most platforms are a spectacle of your friends and family's "high moments" and the perfectly lit and edited life that they WANT you to see.
  
  This I think is already covered by many others, but you seem to be talking about very specific use of social media. 
  
  You are also bombarded with ads that try to convince you that your life will suck without \~this\~ product, advertised by the highest standard of beauty in a human specimen. If you take a small core sample of the sociophere, it's easy to observe just how lacking in love most posts appear to be.
  
  While this is legitimate thing that happens (seeing ads), I don't see much relevance to that. I mean if seeing ads is a reason to not partake in activity, then that rules out not just social media, but vast majority of media in general. Also just things like walking around in a city or driving in many roads would include that.
  
  The way I see it, it's a lot of people screaming the darkest slices of their ego into the digital void, proclaiming "I am right", "I am better", "I am God".
  
  That's certainly a one way to look at it. I guess this whole piece of text just confuses me. You mention darkest slices of ego, but your examples are not something I find all that "dark" or anything like that. I've heard people say all of those things both in social media as well as in real life. Sometimes in situations/context where they were assholes and sometimes in context where it was totally fine as far as I can see.
  
  Between ego fishing and cries for validation, there are memes that perpetuate animalistic and frankly, stupid realms of thought and perception. It seems as though you need to make pointed effort in order to discover and experience anything of real value and knowledge.
  
  Isn't real value and knowledge as a concept quite subjective? Real value determined by who? I'd certainly imagine that memes have real value in same way that any other form of humor or comedy does. In terms of knowledge I've found plenty of that for my field of work from various social media groups where I can interact and ask questions from others (much larger and more varied group of people than who I otherwise would know) who work in the same field.
  
  If you follow the crumb trail of the almighty algorithm, you are usually faced with "popular" content that does nothing for your mind, body, or soul. As a person who believes that this experience is to help us become our highest selves, I see social media as a poison.
  
  I'll focus on the mind and body aspect since I don't personally believe in existence of a soul, so it would be bit hard to imagine what could do something to that for me. I'm bit unclear what would you classify as "doing something to mind or body"? I can think of a lot of social media content that has gotten me more motivated to do an activity, in many  cases it's a physical one. To me at least this seems like a positive thing. Similarly for mind, I mean when I switched careers I did probably around 50% of my studying and learning through social media platform called youtube. Regarding last sentence, I'm not sure I understood from context what exactly do "this experience" refer to and how would you define or determine that someone is their "highest self".
  
  I do know that there are benefits to those who are seeking community, connection, and communication through the various platforms. It is a useful tool to obtain what you are looking for in regards to information and material items, but beyond that, I can only say that it makes you a dull version of the person you're supposed to be.
  
  This statement feels self contradictory. Like you are saying that there are these benefits, and it's useful tool. However it makes you a shitty person. Maybe that's true, but I couldn't find anywhere in the text you wrote above where that is supposed to happen or how.
  Also here you mention that it makes you a dull person. Now there is the fact that I find that quite odd, since you would imagine that many people who most interact with social media and gather a following do that by the process of their audience finding them anything but dull. However more importantly I find this contradictory to your title. Like if you are telling me that a person is shitty I would associate that with things like them being asshole or rude, not dull or low self-esteem. It seems to me that you have tried to argue how social media would make person low self-esteem and dull, which I don't fully agree with, but even if I would I'm confused where this jump from that to them being shitty would happen and how. >
  
  People with low self esteem are shitty?
  And, is this post for you to say "I'm right / I am God"?
  Are you a shitty person for using social media? Or is this an 'everyone else' thing? >
  
  I think your premise is flawed. It can make you a shitty person. For most people though, it just lowers your self esteem - that does not equate to shitty. >
  
  Then why are you on reddit if you think social media is bad? >
  
  Social media haven't affect my self-esteem in any negative way. I think people who are affected by it already had really shitty self-esteems and/or aren't really in touch with reality. When I see other people achieving something I feel happy for them. If I see person who is hotter than me it doesn't trigger any kind of emotions. I just simply enjoy using social media as amusement, for discussions and keeping in touch with people. Social media isn't bad to the core and it doesn't automatically make people worse. >
  
  It can very much contribute to becoming morally corrupt >
  
  Nah, u are right.