By Hadar Katsman, Features Editor
When you hear the words “social media,” what apps come to mind? Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and Facebook are likely at the top of the list. It is no surprise if LinkedIn wasn’t the first thing you thought of. Though it was launched in 2003, prior to the creation of many well known media platforms, it has yet to receive the reputation as a social media app. Perhaps not socially labeling it as such was a poor decision on society’s behalf.
When Instagram was founded, no one imagined how destructive it would become. It gained instant popularity, hitting the 2-million user mark just four months after its launch. Its goal was, per its slogan, to “capture and share the world’s moments” through posting and sharing pictures online. What sounded innocent took a turn for the worse, which this generation knows all too well. We have become addicted to technology, with people of all ages constantly glued to a screen. Body image issues have run rampant and thousands of children have experienced cyberbullying.
Two years ago, I deleted Instagram and other widespread social media platforms from my phone and never looked back. So, less than a month into my sophomore year of college when I was bombarded with emails from Yeshiva University to create a LinkedIn account, I hesitated. Something in the back of my mind was telling me it was just like those social media apps I’d deleted. The push to make connections, post content and like other people’s posts was still very much present. But I did as any college student who needed a summer internship did: I made a LinkedIn account. For my own sake, I chose to proceed with caution every time I opened the site, only allowing myself enough time to upload my credentials and to make 150 connections as quickly as possible, the goal one of my college advisors set out for me.
My college advisors called LinkedIn a vital tool for me to get a jump start in my career. After all, it was a professional app. I asked myself, “What could be so addictive and negative about posting my career updates and scrolling through my fellow classmates’ accomplishments?” Unfortunately, it was a lot worse than I realized.
What I’ve learned is that just because LinkedIn is framed as a professional networking site, it does not make it any less harmful for its users. We might not be comparing our bodies or vacations, but we’re comparing something perhaps more important, more sensitive and more uncertain: our futures.
LinkedIn’s mission statement is to “connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.” It’s essentially a platform to network professionally in the hopes of snagging a good reference or an offer for an internship. You can also easily search for jobs on LinkedIn, message professionals and share your resume. On the surface, it sounds like an effective way to network and find job openings. But there’s more to it than that.
According to the Cleveland Clinic, constant access to social media can lead to cyberbullying, body image issues and increased anxiety and depression. As child psychologist Kate Eshleman, PsyD, put it, “Social media makes it easy to compare oneself to another” because “most people put on social media what they want you to see.” On social media, we only see the vacations, the weight loss accomplishments and the fun nights out. Why is LinkedIn any different?
The only difference between Instagram and LinkedIn is the context of the accomplishments. On LinkedIn, no one is posting pictures of the extravagant Thanksgiving dinner they spent days preparing. Instead, it’s the promotion they received, the committee they started or the conference they attended that gets shared with the entire corporate world.
Beyond content, LinkedIn is another app where people ranging from college students to full-time employees can get sucked into doomscrolling. Moreover, LinkedIn also provides users with statistical analysis on how many people their posts are reaching, the engagement of their connections and who visited their profile. This means users feel the need to keep updating their page, ensuring it looks professional and engaging, and to keep posting to maximise their impressions.
And with posts comes the likes and comments. Users are constantly seeking engagement, for recognition of their achievements in the hopes that prospective companies will be impressed with their work and be more likely to hire them. On LinkedIn, users only share the good side of things, as this is what they want potential employers to see. This can be detrimental to anyone, no matter the age of the user or the content they read.
One final danger of LinkedIn is the illusion that investing hours into networking and updating one’s profile will automatically get someone a job. That, however, is not the reality, because jobs are often obtained through personal family or friend connections. Is an engaging LinkedIn profile, then, a necessary prerequisite for success?
Most business students are told that it is. They send in internship applications more than a year in advance and are told that networking is essential and that they must consistently post. At the same time, I wonder how much of their personal time they spend trying to get noticed by recruiters. It’s an unfortunate and damaging system, but they are presented with little choice in the matter because that’s the way the system works. We have been deceived and encouraged to prioritize our career development over our mental health.
We say protect our teenage children from the damaging side of social media, but where is the push back when it comes to LinkedIn? It takes extra attention to recognize that the problems we encounter on what we typically consider social media are happening off of the main social media platforms as well. Rejecting this misconception is the first step to being able to properly recognize the online dangers of LinkedIn. It creates a space open for critique and acknowledgement that the system is broken, no matter how safe the app is presented.
We deserve to be informed about the harms of LinkedIn, to not be told as soon as we enter college that we have to spend hours on the site in order to be successful and find a well-paying job.
If college students continue to devour content on LinkedIn the way they do on Instagram or TikTok, they will eventually pay the price. We must limit our exposure and use of LinkedIn or risk becoming subjects to the corporate world and our classmates’ and coworkers’ accomplishments. We might not be developing body image issues or following every detail of someone’s vacation in the Bahamas on LinkedIn, but it’s dangerous all the same.
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