There is no denying that the increasing prevalence of digital and social media has had a major impact on the way we think and live our lives. Your assignment for this is to write an argument about the impact (positive, negative, or anywhere between) that digital and social media has had on our lives.
The best arguments are specific ones, so avoid broad arguments like social media is good or bad, or the internet has ruined everything. And though you are welcome to connect your argument to your own life and experiences, the only other sources you can use in are your own experiences and the sources listed below.
Sample Answer
The Performance Economy of Self: How Digital Curation Undermines Real-World Satisfaction
The pervasive nature of digital and social media has fundamentally reshaped how identity is constructed and consumed, moving past simple connection and information sharing. The most significant and nuanced impact is the creation of a Performance Economy of Self, where the value of a lived experience is increasingly measured by its shareability and subsequent online validation. This relentless pressure to curate an idealized, public self fundamentally intensifies social anxiety and dramatically reduces overall satisfaction with uncurated, authentic real-world experiences.
The core function of modern platforms is to incentivize self-idealization, turning private life into public content that must compete for attention. Drawing on classical social comparison theory, research demonstrates that users frequently engage in upward social comparison—comparing their own unfiltered, raw reality against the meticulously polished "highlight reels" of others. This comparison is not limited to celebrity influencers; it occurs daily with peers, whose posts are intentionally tailored to show higher social status, ideal appearances, and continuous success. Studies have consistently linked frequent upward social comparison on social networking sites (SNSs) with negative psychological outcomes, including lower self-esteem and increased symptoms of depression and anxiety among young adults.
This creates a psychological dilemma: if one's online self is consistently idealized, any incongruence with the real self leads to internal conflict and a lack of self-concept clarity. I have observed this dynamic personally: I’ve felt the immediate, dopamine-driven satisfaction of posting a heavily filtered image from a vacation, followed quickly by the anxiety of needing to maintain that aesthetic standard across future posts, or the disappointment when a genuinely meaningful, quiet moment—like an early morning run or a thoughtful conversation—goes unrecorded and, therefore, feels less "real" or valuable to the self. When posting is driven by the anticipation of "likes, comments, or other positive feedback," as researchers have noted, the act becomes a measure of external validation rather than an expression of internal experience. This converts genuine life events into mere inputs for public performance.