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Social media has gradually become an exam that caters to others, and fans and likes are your scores.

American youth has turned social media into a “popular competition.”

According to Bloomberg News, millions of American teenagers are turning their Instagram from “personal account” to “business account.” In doing so, they can gain a deeper understanding of the impact of their Instagram tweets and obtain relevant analytical data, but at the same time they will make their private information such as phone numbers and email addresses public and can be viewed by anyone.

Number of fans = popularity

Why do teenagers care about their influence on Instagram?

After a decade or so, it was complicated to find out who is the “most popular classmate in the class.” The students formed different circles with each other, and there was a complicated connection between the circles and the circles. There are several “core members” in each small circle. They may be the best ones in the class or the ones that are the most beautiful. The classmates also conduct some popular discussion and competition in private, sometimes selecting a “class flower”, and sometimes recommending a person as the squad leader.

Today, this matter is no longer complicated. Especially in the United States where teenagers generally own smart phones, social media is accompanied by 10The birth and growth of this generation. Some parents even set up social media accounts for their children from an early age, so that their fans do not lose on the starting line. Fans and likes can just define a person’s “popularity” and naturally become an important indicator for young people to compare each other.

Canada writer Karin Eldor mentioned this phenomenon in a column for Forbes magazine. She was asked by a friend of her 9-year-old daughter how many Instagram fans. After she answered “about a little more than 3,000”, the girl said with a slight sarcasm that she already had more than 30,000 fans.

This phenomenon does not only appear in the West. In the post-90s in China, the popularity of “mutually stepping on space” grew up and they praised each other in the WeChat circle of friends. After the generation of 00, they returned to the QQ space and started to “warm”, “extension” and “fishing boats”.

A test to cater to others

In order to attract more fans and praise, they began to rack their brains.

After turning Instagram into a “business account”, you can see detailed analysis data for each tweet, including the amount of reading, the number of comments, the number of times of sharing and collecting through the site, and How many fans have this tweet brought to you, how many users have been affected. These numbers give you a sense of accomplishment through a richer dimension.

In addition, Instagram can also provide other people with the date, frequency and gender distribution of your tweets to help you better “operate” your social accounts,

In addition to Instagram, Twitter and Facebook have similar analysis tools. Although all platforms are externally stated, these tools exist to facilitate business users who do business on the platform, but social platforms such as Instagram have blurred the line between “individual” and “professional.” More and more ordinary people publish their own creations on Instagram, attract attention and become a professional “net red”, and even eventually create their own personal brand.

Ordinary users can get these analysis tools effortlessly. When the number of fans represents a person’s popularity and becomes so important, people naturally use these analysis tools.

This makes social media a test that caters to others, and fans and likes are your scores. Although many social media have set the minimum age for registration to 13 years old, most teenagers under the age of 13 can easily bypass the restrictions, register their social media accounts, and participate in this “exam.”

A survey shows that the ideal future career for 29% of American teenagers is “YouTuber / Vlogger.” The objects that children worship are no longer teachers, athletes, musicians, astronauts, but become net red.

At the same time, more and more “net red” began to have psychological problems such as depression and anxiety and even mental disorders. Last month, YouTube famous game anchor Etika was found dead in New York. Although there is no evidence that his psychological problems are directly related to YouTube, the negative impact of social media on users is still real and is just a little surface.

Free yourself from social media

Either Instagram or the FB behind it is aware of the seriousness of the problem.

Last year, both Facebook and Instagram launched the “Usage Duration” feature, which allows users to understand how much time they spend on social media and increase their self-control. This year, Instagram started a small-scale test of “do not show likes”, users who have turned this feature will not see how many people like it in the prominent position below the tweet. They said that with this feature, users are expected to “focus on sharing photos, the stories behind the videos, not just how much they like.”

Many people doubt that changes in this product mechanism can fundamentally change the status quo. The incident in which the teenager turned the account into a “business account” was a bad sign. When people are deeply involved in the popular competition and the potential benefits of “becoming a net red”, their emotions are affected by the beating moments of fans and praises, and they can’t help but actively invest more and more time and energy. , continue to increase the code.

Instagram has modified the privacy policy of the “business account”. By default, the mobile phone number and email address are not disclosed. But privacy is just the tip of the iceberg. The bigger problem is still the mental health of this generation. How to change the unhealthy product mechanism, guide young people to pay more attention to life itself, and finally liberate them from the anxiety of social media, this will be a long-term problem.

It’s a coincidence that Instagram just announced that it’s hiding points in some areas and deliberately getting rid of social media digital games when reports about young people switching account attributes were sent out. In June, talking about this feature, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri said in an interview with CBS, “We don’t want Instagram to be a popular game.”