I really enjoyed the table talk that tapped into the debate over whether social media is worth it that has ensued following the Facebook data-leakage scandal. What participants’ insights and comments really captured is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to weigh social media’s costs against its benefits. This weighing is becoming increasingly difficult because it seems that for every benefit to which one can point, there is another cost that can be emphasized. As our discussion touched on, for example, humorous accounts can offer a much needed laugh when someone needs to step away from his or her mountain of books, but as social media is increasingly becoming a forum of entertaining, funny content, users may cross the line between funny and hurtful or problematic in their quest for views and affirmation. When someone’s worst moment, for example, is captured without their consent or knowledge and uploaded to an Instagram account like 5^th and receives millions of views, that moment may become a catalyst of unkind comments and a source of intense emotional suffering for the people captured, or the people close to those captured, in the video or picture. Pointing to another set of concerns that were breached in our discussion, situations like these highlight the potentially problematic consequences of the permanency of content uploaded to social media as well as the erosion of privacy that may result from this permanency. On social media, once a mistake is made—whether that mistake affects you or another—it is nearly impossible to undo it. Indeed, as a couple students alluded to this point, I started to think about how much cognitive energy individuals need to spend just to dissect what is appropriate to post, how much posting is too much, or too little, posting, and how others will interpret whatever content is eventually posted. It is this cognitive effort and concern that I think the potentially damaging effects that social media can have on mental health become readily apparent. Social media is certainly a reflection of the social world, and in the same way that individuals are pressured to create a socially desirable identity in real life, they are pressured to create one online.

A major take away from this table talk, in my opinion, having an open discussion about how the ways individuals are using social media, and the way platforms collect data from this usage, have real social and even political consequences is extremely important. The fact that it is increasingly difficult to extricate the benefits of social media from the costs of social media or to determine whether costs outweigh benefits, or vice versa, seems to only make that discussion more important. In discussing what is beneficial about how social media is used and what is problematic about how social media is used, people can not only come to an informed consensus about what they expect from platforms but also share strategies for maximizing the benefits of social media while minimizing the costs.