By Jacky Lin According to a recent survey, 82% of the U.S. population uses social media, and research by Global WebIndex indicates that more than half of the entire world spends an average of 2 hours and 25 minutes per day on it. These statistics show the extent to which people are strongly influenced by social media, where information spreads quickly and strong connections are made. Despite such convenience, many problems lurk beneath the surface, and people suffer from distracted lifestyles and mental problems. When you see your friend’s perfect photo on Instagram, do you think you are fat or lose your self-esteem? When you see a young person win a lot of international prizes on Facebook, do you feel a sense of inferiority or even a bit cynical? In fact, our addiction to social media can do more harm than good. The Center for Collegiate Mental Health found that many university students suffer from anxiety, depression, and stress, all of which are affected by social media. Here are some of the warning signs: 1. Social media reduces our capacity to concentrate
Most of us check notifications and likes on social media too often. This fragments our attention span and keeps us from working, since the constant buzzing of our phones disrupts our concentration. Cutting down social media can improve our productivity and restore a healthy lifestyle. Cal Newport, an Assistant Professor at Georgetown University, is a case in point. He refuses to use social media, gets off work early most days, enjoys time with his family, and has written many books in a short time. What a fulfilling life he has! 2. Social media makes us afraid of missing out Fear of missing out affects everyone. Even Stina Sanders, a former model who has 107,000 followers on Instagram, feels like she’s being left out when she sees photos of a party she didn’t go to. Her experience might resonate with many of us. We use social media often because we fear that we might miss events, funny stories, or even job opportunities. But behind this fear lies the insecurity that drives us to find satisfaction from social media that we can never have. In fact it’s natural to miss out on things in life, but scrolling through social media only worsens the problem. And after wasting so much time we will feel a pang of remorse. If something really matters to us we will search for it and seize the opportunity actively. 3. Social media hurts our self-esteem When looking at others’ posts on social media we compare our reality with others’ highlight reels. We only see people’s best and brightest moments, which makes us suffer from “Facebook envy” and hurts our self-esteem. When looking at our own posts we tie up our self-worth with what others think about us through likes, comments, and shares. We might delete posts which get few likes because they make us feel unpopular. Dr Tim Bono, author of When Likes Aren’t Enough, points out that “we derive a sense of worth based on how we are doing relative to others, [but] we place our happiness in a variable that is completely beyond our control.” Although there are many problems with using social media, it is not necessary for us to quit completely. But we can alter our social media diet and make adjustments to make us happier. Here are 6 practical suggestions: 1. Use an app to track how much time we spend on social media each day. Then set a goal for how much we want to reduce it by. 2. Turn off our phones at certain times of the day, such as when we’re driving, in a meeting, at the gym, having dinner, spending time with friends, or playing with our kids. 3. Set a certain time to use social media every day. For example, we can develop a habit of using social media from 21:00-21:30 every day to reply to comments, post, or share something. Otherwise, focus on your work and life without social media. 4. Disable social media notifications. It’s hard to resist the constant buzzing, beeping, and dinging of our phones alerting us to new messages. Turning off notifications can help us regain control of our time and focus. 5. Limit checks. If we compulsively check our phone every few seconds, we can wean ourselves by limiting our checks to once every 15 minutes. Then once every 30 minutes, then once an hour. There are apps that can automatically limit when we’re able to access our phones. 6. Try removing social media apps from your phone and only using them from computers. If this sounds like too drastic a step, we can try removing one social media app at a time to see how much we really miss them. If we reduce our social media time, not only will we increase our productivity but we will also become more confident, independent, and happy. We can build our value by ourselves rather than be manipulated by a variable virtual world. a
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May 2024
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