LinkedIn: a necessarily toxic economy

When it comes to posting career updates, the average LinkedIn user has two motives. For one, sharing experiences is the most effective way to bulk up your professional image, bound to be scrutinised by the prospective employer. LinkedIn-posting is, however, equally a praise-seeking pastime. The platform trades in ‘look-at-me’ announcements and congratulatory comments. So much so, that after opening the app and scrolling the home page for a while, positivity becomes too much. It becomes toxic. LinkedIn’s format forces users sitting at home in the blue light of their screens to compare themselves to their smiling, suited peers, delighted and ‘happy to announce’ their dream jobs. But while ‘LinkedIn envy’, as it has been termed, fosters frustration and self-doubt, such an impact could spell profit in the long term. The fear of falling behind can pull users out of dissipation and back onto their feet; seeing success flaunted before you only augments the desire for success. 

LinkedIn appears to be a necessity for the young person of 2025. A quarter of 18–24-year-olds have a profile, perhaps reflecting career-oriented FOMO and a rush to be present where the praise and ‘connections’ are. Browsing the profiles of successful individuals and labelling them your acquaintances gives users a sense of economic inspiration to get off the couch and do something for their career – to seek out experience which may just bear fruit. More than 69 million companies have profiles on the platform, with users registered in 200 countries. The globalised nature of the site, truly ‘LinkedIn’ across oceans and continents, gives aspirational students the chance to plant themselves in the industries of the future. It is a powerful tool, and not only for its kick-up-the-backside concept. 

This surge of young people towards such a hotbed of careerist sentiment is reflected in the data. Every second, two professionals join LinkedIn (that will be 450 new users in the time it takes you to read this article). The LinkedIn economy is a hard-fought and contested struggle to be noticed, all for a share of business interest. Users market themselves and seek approval, aiming to be seen by the 72% of recruiters who regularly use the platform to scout potential candidates. Of these recruiters, 67% view LinkedIn hires as being of better quality. 

There is pressure to be of value, with students turning themselves into commodities in what should be the best years of their lives

But while LinkedIn is a dog-eat-dog social network, it is precisely this competition which makes it so important, especially for students. At the Student Publication Association’s annual conference this month, one speaker in the world of sports journalism told us: “your network is your net worth”. Professional lives can begin on LinkedIn, no matter how sugar-coated and artificial its culture of thumbs-upping and performative affirmation can sometimes seem. 

The LinkedIn ecosystem is not only a networking behemoth but also a job market. Seven people are hired per minute on the platform, whose expanding user base has seen it grow from $2.27 billion in 2017 to $15.14 billion in 2023. The shadow it casts on the careers of budding young professionals – university students in particular – is colossal. I’ve been in seminars where my peers seem to have LinkedIn tabs perennially open, scouring business profiles for opportunities as they copy and paste introductory messages to scores of professionals. There is pressure to be of value, with students turning themselves into commodities in what should be the best years of their lives. 

LinkedIn moves at such a rapid pace, its users coordinating and sharing their paths to accumulating more social capital, that it can often seem like a professional utopia you are excluded from – a race which leaves you in the dust. UK Times journalist Lotte Brundle described the platform as the “unrivalled behemoth of digital inadequacy”, noting the tendency among users to ‘compare and despair’ – as this effect has often been termed. 

In this space of curated self-promotion, the ‘social comparison theory’ originally proposed by psychologist Leon Festinger can flourish. It also propagates the illusion that those posting are experiencing nothing but success in their young careers. Absent are the small failures on these long paths to success. Nobody posts about their frequent rejections or lessons learned – a trope which makes the app seem perfect, even if deceptively so. Trialling such a raw and honest approach to LinkedIn could create a more realistic and supportive environment for career progression, one where introspection has a place in this raging skills and talent market. 

LinkedIn might just be the kick we need — not to impress others, but to inspire ourselves onwards and upwards

One Redditor on a thread called ‘Anyone feel depressed after being on LinkedIn?’ described the platform as a “circle jerk for corporate success and bragging”. At times, the app exists to remind you – or more appropriately to instruct you – about what you should be doing right now. As I write this, not yet having secured any insight days or work experience for my future career in journalism, I too wonder at times about where I’m headed and whether I’m doing enough. The coveted ‘500+ connections’ is a long way off for me currently. Sometimes I feel like an insignificant tadpole in a vast professional ocean. The lesson of LinkedIn however, as daunting and overwhelming as the platform is, is that proactivity secures success. If you too want to be ‘happy to announce’ something, you must actively look for it. Professional networking is a savage game, one where you may have to climb over or outpace a mountain of people. 

LinkedIn’s toxic positivity incorporates everything good and bad about capitalist careerism. The former, more hopeful stance may however be of more value to students. Even if at times it seems like the market of self-satisfied and ‘connected’ students is growing beyond our reach, this should be taken as a gentle and necessary wake-up call. LinkedIn’s vastness means that it houses opportunities for all of us. It’s our task to look for them and put ourselves out there, not in the emotionally draining home page, but in people’s inboxes, and into the world. Toxic though it may seem, LinkedIn might just be the kick we need — not to impress others, but to inspire ourselves onwards and upwards.