The world is witness to an abundant rise in different kinds of addiction. Among them, drug abuse is one of the highest dangers of posing under human addiction. That is what we all believe as well. But how many out there really know of social media addiction? The majority of people around the world do not realize the seriousness of this type of addiction. It is growing to be a normalizing factor which is why the necessity to understand this is even more essential.
Through a survey, it is also proven that the dangers of social media are equal to that of drugs. But the awareness regarding the effects of social media addiction is very less and mostly ignorant. Though it affects every age group, this is vastly common in the young generations. It also exists within the teen culture considering it as a trendy notion. This adds up to the urgency of the issue with a real-time focus on the ways of seeing this addiction. Read further on How Social Media Addiction is Killing Teen Culture to help yourself and others before it gets too late.
Social Media
Social Media is nothing but a platform to connect with friends, family, and colleagues far and wide. Basically a portal to communicate with people. This grew more each day with the input of new technological advancements. Remember the times we had only E-mails? Today, this simple ideology sprung up to become Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Tik-Tok, Whatsapp, and so on. There was no need for such online portals per se but it still exists in the market. How did we accept this new normal life that involves the internet in the foreground?
Amusing as it sounds, all these ‘connections’ come at a cost far from what we can imagine. It is indeed a wonderful space to function globally and evolve creatively in the technological field. In fact, the major source of income in a country and its charts suggesting growth is determined through social media economics. That is undeniable. But the relative effects that cause drastic changes in the lifestyle, education, career, and human behavior is also inarguable.
Social Media Addiction
As the title suggests, addiction is the primary factor we are looking at here. The thing that makes social media addiction different and crucial from others is that you do not realize it. It happens as a conscious effort to get into the world of social media. But the way it progresses to take part in every of your routine goes on to become a subconscious effort. Let’s bring in a very simple example.
There is a huge population working in the corporate sector or in the bounds of the internet. Every day there arises a need to type in a mail and report your work of the day to officials. Does anyone calculate how many hours are spent while composing a long mail every day? The pace of typing might differ but the consistent behavior of staying online becomes a usual practice. Of course, Email though social as it sounds is not an integral part of ‘social media’. But the understanding of it lies parallel to the idea we are adding up to.
Another example on the same lines is content creation. To build in content, the number of hours spent in referring different sources takes in a lot of time. You spend nearly eight hours a day on different platforms for research. This can also come under social media addiction.
How Addiction Works
As I said that social media addiction becomes a subconscious act, it is naturally more dangerous to the younger minds. This comprises especially teenagers. They are the most vulnerable ‘youngest’ people to fall prey to this world of media considering most parents do not allow children to use it. Once the exposure to a social media arena comes in touch with the adolescents, the curiosity sweeps in every moment. The growing phase of these children is the tipping point of the need to explore new options. That is the reason they build more excitement to know how social media functions.
There lies a fire to prove themselves that they are mature enough and the eagerness to get fame/ identity. This can work as a driving force to join such platforms to achieve the same. Some might be unhappy or depressed with the realities in life. For them, social media comes in handy to find a source of comfort. Some others would just like to keep in touch with the near and dear ones. But it builds up to be an unavoidable state of checking notifications on a regular basis.
There is a group of the section wanting to display their talents on a public forum. For those, social media anxiety creeps in every second to make sure they get enough likes and attention. Certain teens feel that they are lagging behind in the teen culture if they are not part of a specific group in social media. Social media trolling can lead teens to depression and self-loathing as well. These are some common versions of social media addiction.
Social Media Addiction- Health Hazards
The first and foremost obvious point to put in is the effect of radiation through the constant use of devices. Consistent working of the hands and straining the eyes to view the screens can cause respective body parts’ nervous disorders. Long hours of utilization can result in weariness summing up to exhaustion. The continuous mind processing work can slow down the brain functionalities to a great extent.
Sitting long hours on just browsing and clicking the feed on Facebook and Instagram can give you cramps and backaches. The body gets lazy and passive due to the lack of physical movement. This can also lead to being obese or the other extreme of being malnourished. The capacity differs from each type of body that one comprises. The processing of nervous systems is also hugely draining. This possibly can result in a state of fits condition as well.
Coming to the effects of mental health, this brings in a lot of dangers. Social media anxiety is one of the most common ones. It is the yearning to be in the limelight whether you like it or not. That is, you feel incomplete on a day’s chores if you have not put up a post online. It is like a day-to-day duty that you believe is necessary otherwise making you feel lost in the real world. A usual anxious person tends to get worse in the case of social media anxiety. Again, teen culture can influence this segment of danger.
Psychological effects of Social Media Addiction
Ever heard of FOMO? You probably might have considering that we live in a world of ‘connections’. This refers to the Fear Of Missing Out. Allow me to explain with an example. How would you react to a picture that you see is post by one of your friends without you in it? Act normal saying it is not that big a deal or lose temper/ feel bad you were not part of the picture? You would say it depends on how close the friend is which is partially acceptable.
But consider you are not close friends and were not part of the invite to the particular party. Will you still feel bad? Then, you have a problem and that is FOMO. This also is in a way relates to social media anxiety. The urge to be in every event that gets into the feed of social media messes with your brain. You tend to think that maybe a bunch of people might not like your presence around them or do not wish to be seen among them. But in reality, it does not reveal anything of that sort.
With the variety of content available online, multiple talents rise up as a way to show it to the world. This is a creative platform to explore, no doubt. But this could also trigger a lot of the teens and even other age groups. They might feel that they do not possess any talent and are useless. This will lead to losing confidence in oneself and also to depression. They become self-conscious and doubtful of their existence.
Cyber-Bullying
Social media trolling is a serious triggering factor to many individuals on the internet. It can tell a lot about the condition of the person trolling and the viewer who is affected by it as well. That is a person who finds that trolling others can bring him/ her some peace of mind is a very grave problem. While also the viewer who succumbs to the social media trolling can reveal the emotional capacity of the person. Both ways, it creates a painful impact on the respective person.
A lot of cases concerning the safety of girls are also in the rounds. Numerous fake profiles search for girls to fall prey in their hands. The accounts wait to misuse the handles of the girls’ profiles leading to various other urgent crimes. They even wipe off money from different accounts by blackmailing and hacking profiles.
Boys fall in such traps too but the majority of cases involve minor girls on social media. You may ask how cyber-bullying comes under the topic of social media addiction. Well, it is all relating fields that intersect in the life of social media. Teens who believe everything and anything on social media are at a vulnerable state of being exploited by others online. It can either be directly through messaging or indirectly invading the profiles through constant tracking of their actions.
If you think that there is only very little possibility of that happening, then think again. Because sadly, there are groups who dedicate their talents to such works of cyber-bullying and social media trolling.
Effects on Social Life
Communicating face-to-face is part of human nature. However alone you like to be, there always arises a need to see people and mingle with them. Considering the COVID situation, this fact is now undeniable. Even if you are an introvert, you will have your kind of people to hang out with at the end of the day. The excess usage of social media can kill this vibe of social interaction.
Spending too much time online can make you feel that interacting with people in real life is very tiring or just boring. Even among your close friends, there might be a barrier for you to break the ice. This happens due to the over comfort you feel on social media.
Consider this, you might have come across a person who speaks really well on Whatsapp and is very active in sharing messages. But once you meet the person face-to-face, he/she might seem the exact opposite of how you perceived earlier. There would be an unwillingness to talk and start a conversation leading to an awkward situation. This comes under the category of social media addiction.
The behavioral patterns change with the amount of time spent online. It consumes your reality to fit in the skeptic world of unreal objectives. You may lose the essence of communication outside the universe of social media bringing you to chaos on what is really what. It manipulates your whole body system and affects the daily routine life.
Social Media Detox
Understanding the consequences of social media addiction, it is essential to take up a counter way to tackle it. Well, we do bring in some of the effective practices that can be helpful for you to fight it off before getting too involved.
Firstly, analyze how many hours you spend every day online on social media. If it varies each day, then sum up an average amount of time of a week. When you realize it is too much of your time, then follow these primary steps to detox yourself from the world of reel mechanisms.
- Allot some time specifically for social media each day. Keep decreasing it after three to four weeks until you get control of your time based on necessity.
- Consider you want to learn something creative in social media but takes a lot of time. Then after you view a certain segment of the learning. Go offline and practice it. This helps your brain to be flexible and shift focus from the screen.
- Switch off the internet once your use of the hour is over.
- Meditate when you get anxious and relieve your nerves by doing some physical activity. Even if it just walking around in the house.
- Keep reminders or apps that control usage of the phone which helps you keep in track of your promise to stay away from the online platforms.
Primitive as it may seem, maintaining these simple rules during the hights of addiction can be very problematic. Hence try not to get to that point by practicing such simple restrictions. Here’s professional help, Social Media Addiction – Addiction Center
Social Media Addiction Killing Teen Culture
I have been talking about how social media rose up to become a part of teen culture. This is pretty self-explanatory that says that teen culture is not about the rivalry of attention on social media but somehow grew that way. It is fascinating how in such a short span of time, the world of technology keeps evolving every now and then. But as proud as it can get, the downside of this comes with much heavy baggage of losing the innocence of playing around in the teenage times.
The addiction starts with a thirst to experience a new thing or object. Later the same experience grows irresistible until you feel it is part of a daily chore. In the book, ‘Irresistible’ by Adam Altar, he mainly speaks of the importance of social media attention, its capitalist notion and economic advantage. In that, he reveals that the famous technocrats of the world do not allow their kids at home to use gadgets or social media. Or some just allocate time restrictions that are strictly followed.
By this, he draws to the conclusion that most famous technocrats are also the most technophobic. This is because they realize what effects it can have on the mind of the teenagers if there is over-usage. No other proof stand worthy of denying this fact of social media being completely harmless. The efficient way to utilize such platforms without bringing damage to the teen culture and livelihood is avoiding it completely or to get a grip on managing it smartly.
