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In high school, I had to consistently remind myself to stay in my own lane. Comparing my test scores with my peers was so tempting, but ultimately futile.

I knew I would end up where I was meant to be, and worrying about where I stood amongst others was a distraction. A few years later, I’m a sophomore at Syracuse University, and I very much miss the days when word of mouth was the only method to gauge myself.

At college, there is no drop-off in the competition between students, but we are much more willing to air our achievements to the public. And in large part, this development is due to one culprit: LinkedIn.

Theoretically, a platform that allows us to promote ourselves to employers seems like a great idea. But in practice, LinkedIn is less about “connecting” with people and more about setting yourself apart. The app creates such an emphasis on individual success that achievements turn into a type of professional leverage.

LinkedIn’s cutthroat culture makes it feel impossible to move at anything less than a frenetic pace. Logging onto the site is like asking for an update on how much more you can be doing. Every time you enter the homepage, there is a flood of announcements that can make it look like everyone but you has their career figured out. Because of this toxic environment, there is no shortage of pressure on users.

In Associations Between Internet-Based Professional Social Networking and Emotional Distress, researchers came to a definitive conclusion on the negative mental effects of LinkedIn: “We found strong, independent linear associations between LinkedIn use and both depression and anxiety [in young adults aged 19-32]. This was true even when we controlled for total social media use, suggesting that our main finding was not simply an artifact of overall increased social media use.” The reason the distinction was needed is due to the similarity in how LinkedIn causes distress amongst its users.

To some degree, people will use LinkedIn as a chance to be a content creator, publishing updates on anything they can come up with to validate their own credentials. This is similar to how apps like Instagram or Facebook allow us to only highlight the moments of our lives that we want to share, except LinkedIn is meant to be a professional site.

Despite LinkedIn being the social media platform that most dramatically cherrypicks good moments from one’s life, it feels like we seldom mention it among these other apps when discussing how to destigmatize social media. Maybe this is because less young people use LinkedIn, or maybe it’s seen as more well-intentioned. Regardless of the rationale behind ignoring the site’s harmful nature, it still manufactures a distorted reality akin to that of other social media platforms that are under fire.

LinkedIn maintains this environment because there will simply never be as many positions open as there are users that desire them. When a job is on the line we have to either buy into this culture or be left behind. Ignoring the red flags of LinkedIn is the only way to secure an employment opportunity when even your friends become your adversaries — which feeds into the cycle.

I am not calling all readers to deactivate their LinkedIn accounts. In fact, I’ll probably upload this very column to the app once it gets published. My primary intent in writing about this topic is to let it serve as a reminder to myself and others that we’ll all be just fine.

Being a university student is already challenging enough, and getting caught up in the idealistic world of LinkedIn only works against you. Instead, shift that focus towards improving on yourself and celebrating your own progress. No one speed is right for everyone.

So as internship season rolls around and you see everyone you know share even their most insignificant accomplishments, remember that it’s no different than someone posting a picture from their vacation on Instagram. There’s strength in only competing against yourself, and I think we can all benefit from hearing that as we frequently use such dog-eat-dog platforms like LinkedIn.

Jonah Weintraub is a sophomore broadcast and digital journalism major. His column appears biweekly. He can be reached at jsweintr@syr.edu.

Published on February 7, 2023 at 10:42 pm