Addiction to Social Media and Effects

Guest Article by Siva Chaitanya P.

Right from waking up in the morning till going to the bed in the night, Smartphones are the most often used device in our lives. Truth to be told, they became an essential part of our lives. To some people smart phones have become everything that they stopped bothering about what is happening in the reality. Here comes the best part for using smartphones which is “The Social Media”.

As Simon Sinek said in one of his interviews, "If you wake up and check your phone before saying good morning to your loved ones, then you are addicted to the social media”

(No offence to the people who are unmarried or not having girlfriend or boyfriend. You know what does it mean!)

Well, let us go through few simple but very important questions that will make oneself to realise - How much extent one has got addicted or attached to social media?

What is the first thing  that you do in the morning after you wake up from the bed ?

Opening Whatsapp to check the inbox, status of others or Opening facebook to see the news feed!

What  is the first thought you get when you find free time?

Using your mobile!

Do you like to hangout with friends or just you want to be inside your living rooms?
What excites you much?
Getting 200 or 300 likes to your pictures in your social media account or learning new skills?
How often you check your news feed in facebook?
Once or twice a day? Or more than 20 or 50 or even 100 times a day?
How much time you really spend on social media daily?
15 minutes ? 1 hour? More than 2 hours?
Do you feel  low when your post goes unnoticed in your social media account?
how many real friends do you have?
hardly two or three or not even one?

And the list goes on……..

if the answer is YES for most of the questions that are asked above, then the conclusion is “Yes, You have addicted to social media to the greater extent.”

Reason For Addiction:

Let us come to the scientific reason for the addiction. It is Dopamine that is responsible for any kind of addiction. Addiction might be smoking, drinking, drugs, pornography, playing useless games. We actually respond to see any kind of progress and any sort of progress rewards us with a dopamine rush in our brains. Whenever the dopamine rush increases in brain, our brain makes us to do the activities so often that are responsible for its rush initially. The more we continue doing that activity so often, the more we are hard-wiring the activity that we have been doing into the brain which ultimately becomes a habit or an addiction. This is how many of us get addicted to some of the activities in our lives including silly things like playing games on mobiles to some serious issues like drugs.

Effects on Personal Life:

It has been  scientifically proven that “Our generation (born after 1994) is the generation with low self esteem, lot of impatience, stressed, depressed and unhappy both personally and professionally.”

What we are actually doing in social media?

We are aiming to gain attention from others through this platform. In fact, everyone of us competing with each other in gaining attention.  And they design their applications in a way that we get addicted to it so easily since our minds are liable. And the thing that has to be realised is  that our addiction is their revenue.

Let us see a very common scenario that happens usually. Every time we post a new picture of us in social media, we start bothering about the number of likes, comments that the picture would get. What actually we are doing here is that we are tying our self worth with what others think about us and then we are quantifying it for everyone to see. We are obsessed. We have to get that selfie just right and we will take 300 photos to make sure and we will wait for the perfect time to post it.

This kind of obsession has very serious impacts on our mental behavior. Whenever we fail to get as many likes as we expected, we feel low and depressed. This may sound ridiculous but it is the truth that cannot be ignored. When our social media goes confronted over time that is when we see the raise in level of anxiety and depression. The fear of missing out, the distractions, the comparisons, the highlight reels and lots in it. The worst part is that we feel like that all the time when we are in social media.

Privacy:

And one more issue that has to be discussed regarding social media is privacy. Do you really think the information that you provide while creating an account in social media and the information that you provide as your bio like personal interests, hobbies, where do you live, pictures you post are safe and secured? Answer for this is - A Big NO.

Have you  ever wondered how facebook or any other social media application organisations earning billions and billions of dollars every year? Truth is that these applications were not designed  with the intention  to entertain us or educate us or to help us to be in contact with our friends or family. One of the main intentions is to provide much advertising space. They were actually designed to reach as many people as possible to sell products. Once the marketeers have had a really tough time trying to turn the internet into something that they can commercialize in some way of reaching people and one of the best platforms for that is social media.

Social network allows them to know what people like, where people live and even in some cases how much they earn. Your liked pages are tracked and the data which you provide thinking that data will help others (your friends,family) to know much about you will be sold to these marketeers and advertisers. This seems harsh but it is the truth.

Do you ever think, why you receive many spam mails from unknown advertisers and phone calls from unknown numbers asking you to listen to their product details to buy? - This is the reason behind it.

The aim of this article is not to  make you to quit social media or spend less time on social media.

Absence is not an option anymore

Social media is neither good nor bad, it is just a recent tool that we are using to do which we have always been doing like telling stories, posting photos and communicating with each other. You will not blame a Sony television for a bad television show. When it comes to the dark side of social media, One has to focus on the dark side of people (Us). The dark side that  makes us to take down pictures to post and get attention, the dark side that looks at a picture of a handsome guy/girl  and makes us to compare our looks with them.

So as parents, as educators, as teachers and as bosses, it is our responsibility to focus on this dark side. According to a study, on an average every teenager spends 2 hours a day on social media. Imagine the result, if we start using those 2 hours in learning some new skills or playing any sport/game or spending time with loved ones. We know what is reality but we do not want to put that in implementation.

As already discussed, there is nothing wrong with social media and cell phones. It is because of imbalance. Alcohol is not bad but too much alcohol is bad, gambling is fun but too much gambling is bad. It is the imbalance that we create to ourselves. Life is not only about posting photos, being in online for 8 hours a day and chatting with friends, it is much more than that by forming deep meaningful relationships, job fulfillment, joy, love of life, self confidence, a skill set. These are not just instant gratifications, they take some time to develop unlike technology.

It is never too late to change. Let us not be example as the dumbest generation where people are addicted to virtual world rather than attaching to the real world for the future generations.

STAY PEACE.