Hi, My Name Is... And I Am A Social Media Addict
Facebook has many advantages like connecting you to family members who live in another country that you would hardly ever or never see. It can used for connecting businesses and workers together and creating pages for your company , from launching your own business, becoming a viral sensation, or even finding your one true love... well maybe.
That fact is, is that Facebook is hugely popular and is a heavily successful business that’s on the screens or in the palms of over 1 billion people across the globe.
But as we all know every good creation in the world has its draw backs. For example your private business isn’t really your private business, before accepting the application on your mobile you must accept certain "permissions" which allows the application to record any data that they deem suitable, the scary thing is now it seems we are more exposed today due to applications like this than we ever have been and it seems we don’t bat an eyelid to these "permissions" as long as we get to use the service.
AND... The even scarier part is the number of Facebook users drastically increases each year , as we can see from Statista statistics,
It crazy to think this is happening. You could say it’s just the norm now. That society is growing up inter-twining with technology, like a plant growing around a tree , we now feel we need social media and future technology to better ourselves, our learning outcomes and life experiences.
This is true in some sense, but in reality, social media, has become the drug and we are the addicts.
The social experiment required a group of college students to unplug from all forms of media for a twenty four hour period, then record their experiences from doing so.
The results showed that the students who had “unplugged” realised they had accomplished a lot more work than they would have done if they hadn’t unplugged (Bjorklund et al(2012). unsurprisingly what the experimenters also discovered was that “nearly all the students who took part in the unplugged project were startled by the amount of time they spend with digital media and the degree to which media is entwined into their lives” (Bjorklund et al, 2012 p 94).
This experiment shows that media and social media in particular seems to be the main focus in our lives, and that without it we can feel anxious and lonely (because of loss of constant communication) which was reported by students in this experiment also.
Like an addiction , the side effects of being "without" had shown within the group. They had started to feel anxious because they didn’t have their fix of Facebook or Twitter for example , they were also feeling isolated and lonely because they had lossed the constant connection the get with social media .It can be compared to the loss of a drug that can fill that void or gives an addict the feeling of satisfaction that they crave that cannot be filled by anything else.
It is reported that many people feel this way when going without there laptops tablet or phones, where that cannot access the internet.
In reality these are not good things to be feeling from creations that are meant to bring us joy, interest and education.
But never fear as all hope is not loss, there are steps you can take to wean yourself off a social media overdose, if you feel you have one, like:
1: They next time you need to ask someone a question, if feasible ask them in person. Face to face contact is more beneficial for the brain and the soul.
2: They next time you find yourself glued to your phone, drop it like it is hot coal, back away from it and step outside, you will realise that life has more interest and colour when its looked at through real eyes and not a slightly pixelated screen.
3. Finally, when feeling those achy signs of anxiety and loneliness, find a close friend and confide in them, you never know they could be feeling the same way. As stated in point 1 face to face contact is beneficial, it even creates a stronger bond between two people from the personal contact you share and the feelings express
There is nothing wrong with a little bit of social media to stay connected to friends and to past the time, just know your limitations and when its time to put the phone down. No one said you couldn't have your cake and eat it too,in this case, the key is moderation.
Until next time folks,
Stay Safe , Stay Well
Stay Social Media Minded .
Sources.
The
Unplugged Project
Bjorklund, W. L., Rehling, D.L., Tompkins, P.
S & Strom, R. E, (2012).The Unplugged Project, Communication Teacher(online),26:2, (31/01/ 2012),pp92-98 Available: Taylor and Francis online http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17404622.2011.643810 ( accessed 04 December,2015).
https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide/
created in 2016 accessed 18/10 2016
http://www.talentedheads.com/2013/04/09/generation-confused/
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