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Why Social Media Is Ruining Your Life
Author _ Katherine Omerod
Publisher _ Cassell, 2018. 256 pp. Hardcover. £12.99. ISBN: 978-1-7884-0062-6.
Reviewer _ Sarah Grace Glover, Assistant Professor, Reference and Instruction Librarian, Collection Selector for Modern and Classical Languages and Spanish Departments, University of North Georgia
Katherine Omerod’s Why Social Media Is Ruining Your Life takes a cursory look into social networks and their effects on mental health and day-to-day life. As a fashion blogger who uses Instagram as the main source of her business, Omerod uses both personal accounts and academic research to address current issues and bad behaviors developed through frequent social network use. Omerod’s main argument is that social media exaggerates self-esteem and mental health issues. She discusses how social networking sites such as Facebook and Instagram interact with the brain like an addiction. Each time we get a “like” from a picture or status we have posted, our brains receive a dopamine hit. She goes further to point out that social networking companies have created algorithms to keep our addiction alive; this is often done by limiting how many people see, and thus “like” our posts, as well as timing when the post is shown so we are continually refreshing our app for updates. As we become addicted to these networks, we also become addicted to curating our online image. With the advent of editing apps such as Facetune, it’s easy to...