You sit for hours, scrolling through Instagram Reels, TikToks, and YouTube Shorts. For hours a day, you focus all your attention on the small rectangular screen in your hands. The day passes, and before you know it, it’s time for bed. But what about your friends and family? What about life in general? Social media causes us to become withdrawn and isolated from others, increases depression and anxiety, and can lead to an unhealthy addiction.
It may seem like we are surrounded by friends; people we follow on social media or people who follow us. It’s become a competition of who’s most popular by the number of followers someone has. But in reality, many of those people are just recurring faces that we truly don’t know anything about. We spend time surrounding ourselves with these ‘friends’ instead of our family and the people who are actually present, not just a profile picture on an app. On an average day, teens spend about 4.8 hours on social media, according to the American Psychological Association, a scientific organization that focuses on psychology. That is a lot of time to spend staring at a screen. Based on a study from the National Archives, teens around 15 years old average about 69 minutes a day with their parents. Teens spend about one-fourth the amount of time with their parents compared to time online. Social media is taking over our days and, more importantly, taking away time with friends and family.
As awesome as social media may seem, it also helps to increase the rates of anxiety and depression in teenagers. Millions of influencers constantly post all the great things about their lives over social media: Christmas gift halls, birthday parties, and expensive trips around the world. We constantly compare ourselves to their seemingly perfect lives, and it’s not healthy. A study by Mayo Clinic, a nonprofit American academic medical center, looked at 12,000 teens in England from ages 13 to 16, and found that spending “more than three times a day [on social media] predicted poor mental health and well-being in teens.” Social media has set high standards for beauty and norms in our world, and it has decreased our self-worth.
Most people use social media as a quick source of dopamine. When people scroll through social media, it releases a neurotransmitter called dopamine. Dopamine is connected to pleasure, motivation, and reward, and is also known to be linked to addiction. Jena Hilliard, an author for Addiction Center, an informational web guide, defines social media addiction as “being overly concerned about social media, driven by an uncontrollable urge to log on to or use social media, and devoting so much time and effort to social media that it impairs other important life areas.” When we spend time on social media, we fail to take in the world around us. Scrolling through social media gives us a short burst of dopamine that leaves us wanting more and more, resulting in hours of time online. It’s important that we look up from our phones and live.
Some might argue that social media allows them to keep in touch with distant friends and family, and while that might be true at some point, all of the time spent on social media isn’t always directed towards talking to others. Most people, when they get online, go immediately to the reels on their page. They end up scrolling, and then before they can blink, five minutes have passed. Social media can distract us from what we actually meant to do.
Social media allows people to find a little joy in their day, but it can also result in isolation, mental health issues, and addiction. The impact social media has on us is insane. From the amount of time we spend each day looking at our social media to the addiction it can cause, it seems social media has more of a negative impact than a positive one. Put the device down and go hang out with friends or family. Taking time away from social media can have a positive impact on your life.
