As a university student, social media has been a strong influence on my life. It has been a major influence on my life ever since I was in elementary school. I remember receiving my first piece of technology and I could finally download the social media application, Instagram. Over the years, social media and technology have continued to advance, where people can connect with people, play games through an immersive experience, and gather information online rather than in the newspaper.
As a Gen Z, I don’t remember a time when technology and social media were not in my life. It has been a main source of communication with family and friends when I am far away, where I can discover new content, complete my school work, and educate myself on news around the world. But sometimes, I wonder how life would be if I didn’t grow up in a generation where technology is everywhere?
Some Key facts:
It is proven that more than half of the world’s population uses social media platforms, with 259 million new users that joined social media only last year.
To further expand on social media and online usage, in Canada alone, collected from Statistics Canada: about 8 in 10 (78%) Canadians who used the Internet in the previous three months were regular social media users. Furthermore, a survey conducted in 2018 found that for users ages 15 to 64, one-fifth of these individuals had done less physical activity, lost sleep, and had trouble focusing on everyday tasks.
With online advancements, individuals are able to play online games with users across the world and become immersed in different online realities. To further expand, phones were a major advancement in technology, where Apple and Samsung became popular, along with the Apple phones getting a front-facing camera in 2010. This opened doors for a lot of people to take more pictures, such as selfies, having a higher internet speed and better graphics.
However, during the years of 2019-2020, when the pandemic began, screen time rose significantly. During the pandemic, as quoted by Statistics Canada: “nearly 80% of parents reported increased screen time among children and youth compared with before the pandemic.”
62.3% of the world’s population uses social media. The average daily usage is 2 hours and 23 minutes (April 2024).
Chaffey 2024
From my research, I have gathered three different perspectives on how social media has changed the lives of Carleton Students.
Interviews
Interview #1: Student B is a first-year Master’s Student at Carleton University. I captured the key takeaways from this interview:
Interviewer: How many hours would you say you spend on your phone per day?
Student B: “I think a couple, maybe like two to two and a half hours, it probable depends on the day.”
Interviewer: Would you say you are on your phone to check social media or What would you be using a lot on your phone?
Student B: “I’m not a huge like scroller when it comes to social media, but I don’t know, Yeah I do check social media, I feel like messages, like that’s really the biggest thing that I use social media for is like keeping contact with people, especially like Instagram, I’m much more likely to message someone on Instagram than scroll through reels or stories.”
Interviewer: Are you on other social media platforms other than Instagram?
Student B: “I am on Pinterest, I am on Tumblr, I think that’s about it. Yeah not on Snapchat.”
Interviewer: “No TikTok?”
Student B: “Not on TikTok.”
Interviewer: “What’s the reason behind not being on TikTok? Do you think it’s just the same content on Instagram or just overconsuming?”
Student B: “I feel like I could easily get addicted to something like that, I don’t enjoy the feeling of just like scrolling and I can get a lot of content on Instagram that I can get on TikTok, and if there’s really good TikTok content, people would send it to me […] I feel like if I never get it, it will never become a problem.”
Interviewer: “I think about people sending you TikToks or messages on Instagram, does it every distract you from completing your work or assignments for school?”
Student B: “I guess sometimes it can be a distraction, but I feel like I am much more likely to get distracted by YouTube […] people don’t send me enough stuff to get substantially distracted.”
Interviewer: “Do you think that’s like affecting your attention span at all, when you talk to people?”
Student B: “I do think about that, it’s hard to say, it’s really hard to say.”
“I feel like I do have a pretty solid attention span, and I think that’s also, I like I’m in film studies, we consume a lot of long form stuff, like I watch films regularly and that’s like hours of your time just on one thing. So I feel like my attention span is really good but I will say if I’m like tired or something like that, it just goes out the window, I’m more inclined to scroll if I am tired.”
I feel like if I never get it, it will never become a problem.
Quoted by Student B
Throughout the interview with Student B, I was able to dive deeper into how social media has affected Student B, as it is a big part of our everyday lives.
Interviewer: Would you be able to go a week to 30 days without checking social media or your phone? How much of a toll would that put on you? Why or why not?
Student B: “I mean it’s very much a part of my life, like even just casually, I think it would be quite difficult, but for the reasons I said before, like connecting with people. I would lose contact with all the people back home if I couldn’t be on my phone, if I couldn’t use social media. I think that would be really challenging for me.”
With social media being a constant presence in our lives, although it can have positive effects on our engagement and communication with others, there rises concern about how social media continues to affect our generation.
Mental health is another factor in social media, as we spend a lot of time online, themes of comparison can arise, and mindset shifts.
I conducted another interview with Student D, a first-year Master’s student at Carleton University, and Student B, a third-year undergraduate student, at the same time. I asked a very similar question on if they could go a day or a week without picking up their phone:
Student A: “It’s pretty tough I feel like to do […].”
Interviewer: “How come you say it would be tough to not pick it [your phone] up for a week?”
Student A: “it almost feels like a part of you now […] everyone else has it as well.”
Student D: “It’s like being connected, like messages as well. It’s not only just checking uh social media and like scrolling. It’s also like being […] connected to anyone, everyone.“
Student A: “I feel like it’s also you have that feeling that you could be missing something, like missing out.”
You have that feeling that you could be missing something
Quoted by Student R
Interviewer: “I’m thinking about a lot of stuff, like social media hasn’t always been there, there was just calling your friends, or even before calling, emailing, or sending letters, do you think that’s affected people, do you think there’s less effort or do you think that social media has made things so much easier to contact. If social media went away, do you think that people would try and reach out?”
Student B: “I think I definitely would but that’s like something that I really value in my life, is that kind of connection, especially liking so far away from my family and friends, yeah like absolutely I would use other methods, and I do phone people pretty frequently.”
Student A had a very similar but different answers:
Student A: “I feel like sending a letter would be kind of tough, because it would take longer than I’m used to for hearing a response […]. I’m quite responsive if somebody sends me a message, I send it back and I guess I kind of expected as well to hear back quickly.”
Reminders for how social media affects our everyday lives:
Social media has grown as Gen Z, with new smartphones being released every year and new social media platforms for kids to use. In the years between 2014 and 2016, in my experience, social media was taken by storm in my elementary school, with the popularity of iPod touches and students downloading Instagram for the very first time.
Now that it is 2024, social media has become a preferred platform for entertainment, retaining new information, and shopping. Instagram has been an evolving platform, along with platforms such as Snapchat, Facebook, and LinkedIn. However, there have been other platforms that continue to rise in popularity, such as TikTok, which became very popular in 2018, surpassing other social media platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram.
However, an article written by Peter Suciu reflects upon the influence social media has on younger viewers. It quotes that: “The next generation yearns for authenticity and real connections. Many social media platforms have become marketing and advertising focused, often detracting from genuine, unfiltered content that truly resonates with the audience.”
From the interviews conducted, Student B went more in-depth on the effects of living online.
Interviewer: “We grew up in the generation with social media and phones being there all the time, and it’s a way to connect with family, […], but it feels like we are losing a sense of living while we are living online, but how do you feel that [social media] has changed your perspective on life, if it’s affected your positively or negatively?
Student B: “I think its’ been a mixed bag, there has been some positives, for me it really depends on which social media spaces I’m in. Instagram, I find to be more on the negative side, depending on the types of content I am consuming on there, verses like […] Tumblr is very sort of like communal space where people interact with each other regularly and you can find like other people whoa re interested in fandoms you are into, so that is like nice in like an online community type way.
Yeah when it comes to just doom scrolling, I feel like that is, it’s hard to think of that has anything other than negative.
And just the sort of unrealistic expectations that can be present on an app like Instagram, I often find that it’s better to sort of disengage.”
It’s also like being connected to anyone, everyone
Quoted by Student D
Student A and Student D had a similar answer:
Student A: “I think there’s a lot of positives and negatives for it. Um, I think it can connect people, but also make people feel more isolated because, you can connect to people on the screens, but maybe you wouldn’t connect to people in person as much sometimes.”
Student D: “I say also like there’s more self comparison, right? Because you see everything, like everyone, and you see more people than you have see, like before/without the internet, so you have this, self comparison with everyone else, like, you’re not doing enough, you’re not being successful enough or something like that.”
Student A: “Yeah. if we are seeing on there [or] like the point one percent of the one percent.”
Student D: “And what the algorithm wants you to see.”
Interviewer: “Yeah, it’s kind of like a highlight reel […] you don’t see everyone’s life fully.”
Conclusion
Social media has become an everyday tool for the younger generation, and for Gen Z, it has been around for a long time. Personally, I use my phone every day, whether it is messaging my family and friends, completing online schoolwork, finding inspiration and hobbies, and more, it is the place where you can find almost everything.
However, something I crave is human connection. The internet and social media are something that takes away in-person human interaction. Social media has been a wonderful tool to connect with others from a farther distance, but it lacks the emotional connection humans tend to need.
My key takeaway from the conversations I had with all three students is that it has been a tool, but they also want to find a sense of balance in their everyday lives. There are ways to do this while also focusing on your well-being, socializing, and being your authentic self.