“Social media is really dangerous, I thought some random person was someone I knew and it’s just so easy to pretend to be someone else,” says Olivia Besikof ‘27.
On social media people can pick fights, sign petitions, dox Supreme court members, share internet safety tips, have their account hacked, or catch up with old friends. With the endless possibilities of social media, there are many risks such as hacking and data mining that cause it to be an unsafe environment. However, I believe that while there are undeniable safety risks associated with social media, it is a necessary form of communication in our current society. Recently, Besikof had her Instagram account hacked. She explained that an account under the name of one of her classmates DMed her and said “hey my account is missing can you help me get it back.” She trusted it because she thought it was “some kid [she’d] known since like 4th grade” and “followed the steps they sent and it led them to [her] account” where they “set up a two step verification so [she] couldn’t get back in.”
Besikof’s story is similar to the ones of two other upper school students, Aryanna Rossi ‘26 and Olivia Duplessis ‘27. Rossi recounted how “In 6th grade [her] insta got hacked and they sent all these random messages to ppl in [her] instagram DMs and they were trying to scam people.” Duplessis fell victim to a similar hack in 7th grade where she “got logged out and then someone was in [her] account just texting people.”
Bristol Pann ‘26 agrees that social media can be dangerous but “it really depends” because it is also a good communication tool when “all [his] friends are on there.”
Sidney Albright ‘24 said that while they do agree that the dangers of social media are “pretty horrifying” there is also “a risk reward factor” as social media allows them to “keep in touch with friends that [they] otherwise wouldn’t.” They point out that while social media platforms are dangerous “the platform is not what [they’re] there for, [they’re] there for the people on the other side.”
