Social media can be a double edged sword.
Pros of Social Media
On one hand, social media can help you stay in contact with long distance friends, significant others, or relatives, provide a place for online socialization and communication, generate a community to raise awareness for social issues and with that create social change, and allow you to educate yourself by providing a multitude of reliable sources. While this sounds amazing on paper, there is much more to it than positive aspects. It is critical to remember that social media is not regulated nearly as much as it needs to be, in a way where it can make all of these positive aspects turn into ones that can be harmful.
Cons of Social Media
When it comes to discussing the cons of social media, I think it is equally important and relevant to mention the Netflix Documentary The Social Dilemma, which brings to light the dangerous impacts and consequences of social networking. Not only does this docudrama discuss the risks social media creates, but it does so from industry professionals who have each worked for and helped create different social media companies. I don’t want to spoil too much of the film, but I will leave off with this: The people who helped build these platforms are the ones that are literally encouraging us to get off of them or at least limit our usage because they realize what they have contributed to is destroying society. Social media erodes the social fabrics of how society is supposed to function because it allows you to trap yourself in a virtual and unrealistic bubble.
In addition, social media can be a hurtful environment as it allows people to talk behind a screen, it can decrease communication skills and hinders people from making genuine emotional connections, can facilitate laziness by contributing to increased amounts of online usage, develop self-image issues, induce “fomo” or fear of missing out, and flat out be addicting which can impair other important aspects of life, or even real life for that matter. All of these aspects can contribute to stress, depression, and anxiety. According to the Addiction Center, “self-disclosure on social networking sites lights up the same part of the brain that also ignites when taking an addictive substance” (Hillard & Parisi 4). For example, when an individual gets a notification, “the brain receives a rush of dopamine and sends it along reward pathways, causing the individual to feel pleasure” (Hillard & Parisi 4). Social media provides an endless amount of immediate rewards in the form of attention or validation from other users in a way where the brain “rewires itself through this positive reinforcement, making people desire likes, retweets, and emoticon reactions” (Hillard & Parisi 5).
The Importance of a Break and How to Take One
Social media breaks are extremely important from a physical, mental, and social standpoint. These breaks can keep you in touch with reality, and improve your overall being by taking time away from staring at a screen or aimlessly scrolling through various social media platforms. To easily distance yourself from social media, you can set time limits on specific applications through settings. By pressing on ScreenTime in the Settings app, you can specifically take note of where you spend the most of your time, and you can set limits based off the graph the app provides. If you want a harder challenge, considering you can dismiss the time limits at any time you want, you can do physical activities such as meet up with friends or partake in a hobby, and either leave your phone completely behind or set it in another room so you don’t feel as much of a need to go on it. It is important to say that you can go on a break for however long or short you want, but the less time you spend on it the more you will be able to go without it. Currently, I am not proud of my screen time. It has been recommended by experts that users should try to limit their screen time, outside of work, to no more than two hours per day. Going forward, I am going to try to challenge myself to get to this point. I might not reach it within the next week, but every small break I take will help me contribute to larger breaks, where I will be able to devote my time to real life events.
https://www.addictioncenter.com/drugs/social-media-addiction/