Illustration: Luo Xuan/GT

Have you ever gone on Facebook, Instagram or WeChat and found yourself hours deep into someone's photos? Have you ever cringed when your finger slips and you like someone's picture from May 2012? When you post on your account, are you waiting for the "likes" or comments to come flooding in?

We have become a society of peepers. The looking glass of social media goes both ways. We are magically let into people's lives, and we also let them into ours. Long gone are the days when tabloids were our only way into the secret lives of celebrities. Now, we can tweet to them and tell them exactly how we feel.

Recently, a girl decided to live-tweet a couple's break up on a delayed flight. She snapped a picture and quoted the couple saying things like, "I just can't stand you. I can't be near you. I would change seats if I could." The girl continued tweeting their entire break up conversation. By the end of it all, the girl's Twitter followers had doubled.

We love seeing the intimate moments of people's lives. As humans, we are programmed to be curious; it is how we learn and adapt. However, this curiosity has reached a new height and is now taking over.

In a Pew research study, from 2005 to 2011, adults using social media went from 5 percent to 69 percent. Today, more than 74 percent of adults are members of social networking sites. Lurking and thumbing through people's personal lives on social media has now become a communal thing. We discuss what we see on social media with friends, coworkers and family.

As soon as you meet someone and exchange social media information, you know that they are going to look through your most recent pictures. So, we try to present ourselves in the best way possible because we all know how brutal we have been toward someone's unflattering tagged picture.

In addition to social networks, live streaming platforms are becoming more popular every day. People tune in to see anything from a dancing dog to people eating an ungodly amount of food in one sitting.

What may have been seen as stalking or invasive behavior 20 years ago is now commonplace. We deliberately publish our personal information for the world to see. Unfortunately, some people have become addicted to the constant need for immediate attention, and there are now disorders associated with the depression or anxiety that comes along with social media interaction.

People can even buy followers and likes to make themselves seem more desirable or important to others.

We also have to be careful of what we upload to our accounts because it could get you fired if your employer saw you drinking or doing something out of character for your job.

Are social networks bringing us together, or just allowing us to be snoops who create perfect images of ourselves for others to see and dissect? Social media is not going anywhere anytime soon, so at least we can be aware of our actions in this new wave of voyeurism.

This article was published on the Global Times Metropolitan section Two Cents page, a space for reader submissions, including opinion, humor and satire. The ideas expressed are those of the author alone, and do not represent the position of the Global Times.