Teenagers & Influencers

First of all - why does a digital native who does not even have children of her own (yet) gets to have a saying on the impact that social media is having on teenagers? Well, freedom of expression I suppose.

Maybe it's because the days of dial-up internet access are still so vivid in my memory that I have such a hard time trying to wrap my head around the fact that children and teens these days really do not know any different.

When I was a kid growing up in a tiny Italian village, internet was a treat - an 8pm treat, to be precise. My brother allowed me to surf the web with him after dinner and I remember the anticipation leading to that special moment where all the knowledge of the world was served to me on a silver platter. I remember reading the news and researching information on my favourite bands and movies, just feeling rather excited yet having no idea that humanity was undergoing one of the most extraordinary revolutions of its time.

AOL, MSN Messenger, MySpace, Fotolog, LimeWire. I am sure these words will definitely ring a bell with any millennial out there. I was a teenager when MySpace was "a thing" in Italy - a pretty cool thing at the time, really. Possibly the equivalent of what Instagram and TikTok are for teens these days. I met some of my best friends on MySpace, people I still adore and hang out with 15 years later. They were just kids like me at the time, young people who lived not too far from my hometown and who shared my same interests, especially when it came to music.

In all fairness, people my age used those platforms mainly to connect and build friendships based on common interests - definitely not to constantly compare each other's lives. Using the internet in a recreational way never affected the projection we had of ourselves or considerably influenced our approach to life. I might even take this a step further and controversially affirm that it probably never affected our mental health in a negative way either.

We all had "regular" goals, I suppose. When the average nosy auntie asked the classic "So what do you want to do when you grow up?" question, our answers were exactly what you would expect from a kid born in the late 80s: I wanted to be a writer, a professor or an air hostess (random, I know). My good friend wanted to be a lawyer, some other kids wanted to be doctors, scientists, astronauts - you name it.

So why does the idea of asking the same question to a teenager these days scare me so much? Why do I feel like some of them would throw the word "influencer" in the mix? Surely, a medical school student who is on the brink of a stress-induced breakdown after years of hard graft might tell you that the Influencer degree launched by Condé Nast Italia is a bit of a joke. But let's give it the benefit of doubt and rate it neutrally, as it might be just a really well arranged marketing course with a focus on social media strategy. And of course, everyone has the right to do and pursue whatever floats their boat.

There are many excellent content creators out there. Many people who use their social media platforms to share positivity and useful information - always in a tasteful way.

However, if I tried to walk in the shoes of a teenager in 2020, I am sure I would find it very hard to take a break from all the images of pseudo-perfection that fill my "digital life" on a daily basis. One could argue that television has been doing exactly the same thing for much longer (especially in countries like Italy or Spain, where even at 6pm is very common to see gorgeous women in skimpy outfits on national television), but this is different.

Let's say I am a 14 year old girl and I really like Celebrity XYZ, who has 20+ million followers on Instagram. I want to be just like her when I grow up. She is a young and attractive digital entrepreneur (!), lives in a multimillion mansion, has a perfect body, a perfect face, perfect clothes, a perfect family. Let's also say I am quite insecure about my body image, I don't like what I see in the mirror and the boy I fancy at school has a crush on someone else who I think looks more like Celebrity XYZ than I do.

Now, Celebrity XYZ very likely makes her money in a variety of legitimate ways, but how is a teenager supposed to know that? Is it even interesting to them? One might as well think that Celebrity XYZ's job is just to post half naked pictures of herself every day.

This makes for a horrifying recipe for disaster which may lead teenage girls to serious issues like permanent body dysmorphia, depression, anxiety and eating disorders.

What was born and devised as a tool to connect people and bring them together has now evolved into something quite different. The question I can't help but asking is: how are we as a society going to protect young girls/boys from all of the above? Self worth is a such a fragile concept, a delicate and precious little thing, especially during a young person's formative years.

I dread the thought of having my own children live a life based on unrealistic comparisons. How do we raise human beings who are comfortable in their own skin, have a strong critical spirit and strive to make a positive impact on the world rather than choosing easy money and a life of glitz and glamour?

What ever happened to all those aspiring scientists, doctors and astronauts? I know you're still there. Please be the change you wish to see in this world and in the world you want to leave behind - it is now much more necessary then ever before.