Social Media Trends

Social media has impacted, and continues to impact, everyone's lives one way or another. These apps can be someone's full time job, source of entertainment, and/or addiction.

Whenever a new "trend" surfaces these sites (Instagram, Tik Tok, Twitter, etc) you can guarantee most viewers log off and go off into the real world to try this new phenomenon.

From the good old days where Youtube and Vine were at the top of the social media food chain, there was the smoothie challenge. You'd write a list of household groceries on bits of paper, toss them around, and choose a specific number of the paper and make a smoothie out of the groceries you just picked out at random. There was the cinnamon challenge where you'd take a tablespoon of powdered cinnamon and attempt to swallow it. There was the Tide Pod challenge where kids would attempt to eat a Tide Pod. ...These are just some of the trends from the past...

It's quite obvious how those challenges, or trends, from a few years back were quite dangerous. I exclusively remember standing in my best friend's kitchen, trying to force myself to put the spoonful of cinnamon powder in my mouth as the camera was rolling at my friend and I. It's what everyone is doing right now, it's going to be a funny video. Just do it. Such a childish way of thinking...I was in 8th grade after all.

However, as time went on, such harmful trends seemed to decrease. I now see more trends about health and fitness than I do about ingesting hazardous chemicals. For example, the chlorophyll in the water trend that blew up all over Tik Tok about a year ago.

Chlorophyll is the natural pigment in plants that gives them their green color and then helps the plants go into photosynthesis. According to the Cleveland Clinic article, Are There Health Benefits To Using Liquid Chlorophyll?, "It (liquid chlorophyll) has long been touted for a wide range of health benefits, including: Cancer prevention...Healing wounds...Skin care and acne treatment...Weight loss...Controlling body odor...Relieving constipation and gas...Boosting energy."

People started going off to Whole Foods or logging onto Amazon to purchase chlorophyll to start adding some drops of it to their water in the mornings, or throughout the day. I remember feeling my best physically when I was in this phase, it truly helped me with my skin and bloating issues.

There have been more "healthy" and safe trends such as the ingestion of sea moss gel (which I am currently in the process of). Sea moss gel has been used by a variety of people, however, scientists are just barely studying its benefits. We know for a fact of all of the vitamins (B12, B2, A, E, C, etc) and minerals it contains, however, scientists also suspect that this type of seaweed might prevent Parkinson's disease and salmonella contamination.

Social media is a part of everyone's lives in this day and age and there is no denying it. Even if someone chooses to not indulge and open up an account for themselves to stay away from it, media still follows them around through ads, billboards, and their friends/family who are directly involved in social media.

And thus, when trends "blow up" on Tik Tok or Instagram or such, a majority of people hear about it. At first, these trends and challenges were childish, pointless, and flat out dangerous. Nowadays, there's been a change in what is being hyped up and I have to say, it's a pretty good change.