Like many others, especially in my age group, I’m a little bit obsessed with social media. Everyday I hop onto Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter to scroll through my feeds of friends, family, and news to stay up to date and interact with the world around me. It’s perfectly normal for their to be negativity on my feed, which I am sure is the same for most people. Twitter, more so than other social media platforms, has a reputation for being extremely toxic, especially given the current circumstances. All across the app people are venting and arguing about every topic from politics to their personal lives and strangers are able to interact with these outpourings. This is what makes Twitter so toxic. Platforms like Facebook and Instagram curate feeds centred on what the user searches for on their platform and who they follow. Twitter does the same to a certain extent, but there is also a lot more interaction beyond these parameters.
I've been suffering with anxiety and depression for most of my life, which I take medication to manage. The medication helps, but I still feel the effects of my mental illness and I’ve just accepted that these issues are here to stay. As with most sufferers of mental health ailments, I fluctuate, and have good and bad days/ weeks/ months depending on a variety of factors, and pre-lockdown I was concerned that months in isolation would make me hit an all-time low.
