Impacts of Social Media Addiction
Since when does checking social media become the first thing we do after we open our eyes and the last thing before we close our eyes? Nowadays, social media addiction is like a pandemic because almost everyone suffers from it more or less. Concerning the increasing time people spend on social media, there are three effects of social media addiction will be discussed, including isolation from the real world, and impairment to both physical and mental health.
First, social media addiction isolates people from the real world. A survey conducted by LivePerson (2017) demonstrated that Gen Z (abbreviation of Generation Z, which means people born from the mid-to-late 1990s to early 2010s) and millennials (people born between 1981-1996) prefer digital communication rather than face-to-face communication. Online communication is indeed convenient and timely; however, it is also less effective and to be misunderstood easily, and some skills can only be learned by face-to-face communication like body language and facial expressions. Moreover, with social media, it seems that the whole world is
closer, while it actually widens the
distance between people. We think
we can maintain our friendships simply
by social media and digital communication,
but sometimes words and emojis (small
digital images to express emotions) don’t
necessarily stand for one’s true feelings.
In the long term, it will weaken people’s
social skills and will estrange their
connections to the world.
Second, social media addiction can harm people’s physical health. According to a study conducted by Harvard University, the addiction to social media and other addictive substances lights up the same area of the brain, which means the person with social media addiction shares the same symptoms with those who with drug addiction. As we all know, the most painful phase of getting rid of an addiction is withdrawal symptoms, and the most common one is insomnia. Their body is out of the normal biological clock due to the excessive time they spend on social media, so they need to get used to the original one once again. The recovery of returning to an original sleep pattern usually takes six months or more. Because of these mechanisms, once the situation becomes an addiction, it would be arduous to quit social media and prevent them from impairing one’s physical health.
Lastly, mental condition changes must come with social media addiction inevitably. People tend to show the best part of themselves on social media, so we can see many people sharing their feast, buying luxuries, or hanging out with friends. Immersing oneself in social networks for a long time might trigger negative emotions like jealousy, loneliness, a sense of inferiority, etc. On the other hand, when one writes a post, he or she might
refresh the page every minute, and is eager
to know who has seen the posts and how
many likes and comments he or she has
received. If the number of likes starts to
slow down or fewer than the last post, one
might become anxious and feel disappointed.
RSPH (2017) published a survey about the
positive and negative effects of YouTube,
Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and Twitter
on young people. Except for YouTube, the other
four media only have negative impacts on the
youth, and Instagram is even ranked to have
the worst influence on millennials’ mental health.
Although social media enable us to interact with our friends promptly and share our lives easier, if it becomes an addiction, it will not only isolate us from the real world but also cause great damage to our physical and mental health. Social media are supposed to be an effective tool for us, and we should use them to facilitate our lives rather than lower the quality of our lives.
References
LivePerson (2017) Gen Z and Millennials now more likely to communicate with each other digitally than in person
Retrieve from: https://pr.liveperson.com/index.php?s=43&item=504
RSPH (2017) Instagram Ranked Worst for Young People’s Mental Health
Retrieve from: https://www.rsph.org.uk/about-us/news/instagram-ranked-worst-for-young-people-s-mental-health.html
