Opinion | LinkedIn is secretly toxic

Luca Evans, Managing Editor

To be a member of Generation Z is to live life through stages of social media apps. First came our Instagram and Snapchat phases, which were awkward and full of Vine references. Then came our gradual shift to Twitter, an excessive comfortability with sharing our inner thoughts and still filled with Vine references. At some point, we may have dabbled in TikTok – trying to capture what little remains of our childhood spirit after it’s been crushed by this cruel, cruel world … and filled with Vine references. 

Perhaps it’s different for me, but I always considered LinkedIn as a shiny tool of adulthood that stood completely separate from social media. You can get jobs. You can connect with professionals. People generally speak in capitals, use proper punctuation and phrase their sentences like, “This dog makes me feel happy” rather than, “it’s the ~dog~ for me.” 

Yet over this quarantine season, a realization began to dawn on me. That sophistication, the crisply pressed suits, designer sunglasses and perfectly formatted resumes – it’s all merely a shiny, gold-trimmed front. Peeling it back reveals the ugly aspects of human nature lurking underneath. 

Here has been my routine over the past few months: wake up, do some random work, take a break, subsequently feel bad about myself for taking that break, subconsciously tell myself that I will be a failure if I’m not always productive, hop on LinkedIn and scroll through job opportunities until my eyes bleed to soothe this anxiety rather than actually face it head-on.

Because here’s the hard truth: LinkedIn preys on people like us. It preys on the perfectionists, the workaholics, the people that feel slightly self-conscious whenever they see anyone in a more advanced career position. Every day, I see posts with thousands of likes from random 28-year-old, baby-faced, obnoxiously blue-eyed white dudes telling me to work harder so I can just, like, make money already. 

I mean, I literally just opened the app, scrolled down and saw this post from a guy who said, “Normal is broke. Normal is paycheck to paycheck. Normal is tired, stressed and anxious. Don’t be normal. Agree?”

No! I very much do not agree! Thank you, genuinely, for telling me to just stop being anxious. I’ll go do that now and maybe all my career goals will magically fall into place with the snap of a finger. Maybe full bags of money will fall on my head while I sleep. 

Yes, LinkedIn has an overwhelming amount of positives as well. It warms my heart to see people I’m connected with finally secure that job or internship they’d been chasing for awhile, or a reminder from someone to slow down and take time for yourself. Yet, for every one of those posts, there’s a counterpart post from a random marketing executive named Chad or Brad or Scott telling people to basically just make money already.

During quarantine, I’ve thought a lot more seriously about taking my own path – not caring so much about whatever career pressures I feel from those around me, but having the trust in my own work ethic and skills that I will find success, however I define that. So of course I’ll continue using LinkedIn to connect with others I admire and seek out career opportunities. But I’m going to try to stop listening to those Chads and Brads and Scotts of the world, because I already have one of them screaming at me from inside my own head. 

So, finally, let me put it in contemporary social media terms: 

LinkedIn is ~trash.~