Social media

I was conversing with someone today, and I said it would be easier to live 40 to 50 years ago because of the lack of the Internet. My friend disagreed; he said it would be hard to live because there wasn’t so much to entertain them, and also he talked about communication, information, and how difficult it was. I agree with him about the communication and information aspect, but the information is where it gets tricky because people don’t know how our online information affects consumers.

One of the reasons why a lot of people struggle during our time and find it difficult to maintain money is how big companies use social media to advertise to us. They advertise in such a way that they let you believe that you need their product by registering the product in your subconscious. Most times, we don’t know that some of this information that will consume online affects us directly and indirectly; they have a big impact on our decision-making.

Apart from the fact that things were cheaper in the 80s, the data shows that people who are earning the minimum wage were able to build houses and have good properties that generate money for them. It is very difficult for people to use their minimum wage now to acquire properties, and it is not that the money is small, it’s just that social media has made us believe that we have to set some certain standard, buy some things, but in real reality, we don’t need them.

Social media is telling people how to live and what to do with their lives indirectly.

People are now getting their dreams from social media. When you see people talk about their dream marriage, they compare it with one big marriage they saw online. They might not be able to have that big marriage, they will force themselves to do something similar. It is easy to be deceived by what you see online because everybody claims to be rich online. I believe people who lived in the 80s were able to acquire some landed properties because they did not buy as many necessary things. They were able to live with the basic things that they needed.

Now it is easy for you to compare your life with what you see online indirectly, without knowing. I know that people in the 80s don’t have access to a lot of technology that we have now, but they survived, and it was not as if there was no technology at all, but it was limited, and they live better than even longer than us simply because they buy the basic things that they need. People have a lot of things in their homes that they only use once in a while, sometimes once a year, and some of these gadgets or equipment are very expensive.

Social media has already made us believe that simplicity simply means suffering

When you only go for things you need and want, or you’re trying to be frugal, people will call you stupid. They will say you don’t have a lot of time, and you might die tomorrow, and all the money you are saving another person will spend it. Social media has made people believe that it is a crime for you to be simple or for you to be frugal. We buy a lot of things that we don’t need, some of the things that we believe we need are things we have a cheaper option and even nontoxic options that are way better for us, but won’t go for that because social media has me believe that those expensive and things are the things we should go for.

If you stick with the things you need and you save your remaining money or invest in something profitable, you realize that what you call small money is not small. It is you trying to live up to the expectation of what you see on social media. It is you trying to live up to what people call the bare minimum. I’m not saying social media is bad, but it is becoming difficult for people to save to manage their money in our time because we buy a lot of things that we don’t need, and we do a lot of things that are not normal.