Social Media Vs. Our Society
I recently read a quote that made me reflect: “ The more social media we have, the more we think we’re connecting, yet we are really disconnecting from each other”
Technology gadgets and social media are getting a lot of our attention everyday. Social media is composed of different platforms such as social networks, social news, and blogs. According to the article, “ Is technology Taking Over Our Lives?” by Obinna Asikaburu, ‘worldwide there are over 1.35 billion people monthly who are active Facebook users causing a 14 % increase year after year’.This is an alarming rate at which we are increasing our connection with technology and a critical input to set out to the public. Also, I have noticed that most of our morning routines have changed over time. We would usually wake up in the morning for school, get dressed, eat breakfast, brush our teeth, and then make our way to school, but now we wake up check our phone, get dressed, check our phone, and so on. Our priorities have also changed. Now, we rather use our phones instead of doing our school work or chores. We have let technology occupy a huge part of our time.
In today’s generation, technology is seen as an amazing and the greatest invention of all time. This provides an invalid justification for those who are using their phone constantly. There should be some kind of limitation getting set. Using technology for a huge amount of time has become a type of addiction, and many people are not able to recognize it. For instance, younger children get stuck on an electronic device for various hours every day playing games and watching videos or movies. In addition, we always want to use our phones to look up something for a class assignment, even though it can be one of the easiest assignments to complete, or learn how to do something from a Youtube video. We also manage to use it to ‘’communicate’’ with others and feel anxiety when adults, both teachers and parents, tell us to disconnect or to leave it alone. According to the Abnormal White Matter Integrity in Adolescents with Internet Addiction Disorder: A Tract-Based Spatial Statistics Study, this can cause a similar effect in the person’s brain as someone doing drugs or drinking alcohol. This needs to get the spotlight since many don’t realize that they are developing an addiction. Also, many people from this generation have frequently misused and abused the media. Some become pedafiles, bait in order to kidnap others, cyberbullies, expose rated R material which is related to many of the crimes currently happening. Technology has been turned into a terrifying and dangerous weapon.
Being connected to a device with social networks has caused major negative impacts. For instance, we rather text with people that can literally be by our side instead of actually talking to them. On top of that, it doesn’t allow us to fully experience new adventures because we would probably be more focused trying to get that instagrammable picture. Another instance is when we try and replace that missing affection with comments and likes; if we don’t receive a certain amount of likes or comments hyping us up , then our self-esteem might get even more destroyed. Many teens begin getting cyberbullied which participates in the current suicide rate. You would probably argue that if someone is that sensitive, then they should not post but everyone has the privilege to publicly post whenever and whatever they feel like . Posts also try and set standards, labels, and new perspectives for society. In other words, we try to base our posts, relationships, and experiences on other’s opinions. Instead of doing that, we should be living life based on our own life choices.
People should reflect on this topic because we need to come up with an effective solution in order to reduce our usage time. Almost everyone is so dependent on technology to solve everyday problems and satisfy our needs. If we let more and more time pass by, our society will soon lose values, basic skills like listening and communicating, and become more disrespectful. There are many ways to start the journey to ending this addiction.
As a society, we need to work together in order to fight technology as it tries to take over us. We could start with schools applying a phone policy which will impact the way we score on tests and will ensure the teachers that the students are actually paying attention. Although this goes against my liking, I have faith that it will work. In classes where I’m not allowed to use my phone, I am more focused and actually score better on tests which can be proven by my history grade over my physics grade where it is lower for using my phone in class. We can also unplug our electronic devices sometime before going to bed and start off slowly. Another way, would be to set certain time for a small technology break and of course you can start small but don’t go too low to where you don’t see the progress. I understand that breaking through an issue like this one is not simple nor easy, but if you are determined and willing to change, then I believe we will be able to get through it together.