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Are we addicted to social Media?
By Eilir
By Eilir
One of the most common sights in our society today is someone with a mobile phone in their hands. Gone are the days when all they’re doing is texting or heaven forbid actually making a phone call, instead they’re most likely catching up on their social media. From Facebook to Instagram to Snapchat to Twitter, we have become a society obsessed with social media. Whether it’s posting a photo of tonight’s dinner or posting a photo confessing our inner most feelings, we have let social media invade our lives and have been consumed by the need to post photos. Social media is extremely addictive.
We can suddenly delve into the lives of other people, some of which are strangers or people we don’t pass the time of day with. We can not only follow friends but we can also follow celebrities who give us an insight on their day to day lives. As a society, we have used social media to our advantage. We always feel the need to gain the most followers as if it’s a competition, we crave the need to be popular, and the more followers we gain the better. What we don’t realise is the danger of accepting friend requests from strangers online. What we don’t also realise is how people can pretend to be someone they’re not.
This makes bullying easier too, known as cyber bullying. So many people get bullied via the internet and since social media, the numbers have increased of people effected by bullying online. Statistics show that nearly 43% of people have been cyber bullied at least once, and that 1 in every 4 people have had more than one experience.
We make things easier for the bullies by being so open about ourselves, so much that strangers can know too much. As a teenager, I too use social media to my advantage and waste too much time obsessing over likes.
I’ve recently come to an understanding that I’m over using social media and I’ve slowly used the internet less and less each day. I have limited myself to 1 social media.
Statistics show that 28% of iphone users check their social media before getting out of bed in the morning and most teenagers aged 15-19 spend at least 3 hours a day on social media. 71% of teens use multiple social media so it’s hardly surprising they are addicted when there’s so many different platforms to check.