In my unprofessional opinion, social media has created a realm of disillusioned people. This disillusion has created a sickness. I would call it backboneitis. Now, backboneitis is defined by the inability to be an individual.

This illness comes into play when people participating in social media are unable to appreciate what other people have without immediately replicating that in their own life.

Over and over again I observe an inability for teens to have productive interaction when social media isn’t present. The other day I ran into a girl that I grew up with at a local coffee shop. She didn’t say a word to me. She refused to engage in interaction. Today, I got multiple Twitter notifications about her engagement with a recent Tweet of mine.

This scenario is an exact display of the sickness I am talking about. When I ran into her she was surrounded by friends and was unable to act as an individual.

The root of Backboneitis is the style of social media lives. If we are being honest, we don’t post about our loses. The highlight reel of our life looks a lot more like our social media, right? The majority of people present on social media aren’t confident in themselves. When you take someone who isn’t confident in their identity and subject them to the most substantial parts of all their peers’ lives. They become everyone else.

It’s no wonder; consequently, many people have become chameleons. The new fad is to change personalities and personas as they move through life. These people have never learned to be themselves. To them, life has inevitably been on imitating the most influential person in the room.

I propose that we compel attention to the sickness behind social media. The reality is, sick people can only infect the healthy. It’s time that we start creating healthy people.