You Will Hate Social Media After Reading This.
I am sitting in peace on my bed. Curled up in a blanket with my fingers taping on the laptop. The warm cup of coffee gives its smoke out and refreshes each breath I take. Till now my life is smooth. My mind is at peace with my body and my thoughts are asleep. But it only needs one notification bell to ruin it all. The flow, focus, freshness everything shatters. From replying to one message I went into all me too hashtags, again the Palestinian attacks, a child raped, a domestic violence case, flood condition worsening, politicians pulling each other’s legs, economy falling, new drama clip, trending BTS song, the war between Korean drama lovers and haters, my favorite writer new episode releasing, new workshop courses, couple goals, people graduating, doctors protests, best skin care routines, and travel diaries. This endless information keeps on entering my mind until my brain’s energy drains and my motivation to start a productive day vanishes.
And this is not it, then I start to envy my friend who is exploring turkey and here I am sitting on my bed doing nothing with my life. Now this smooth and calm bed is biting me.
“Social Media is training us to compare our lives, instead of appreciating everything we are. No wonder why everyone is always depressed.”
Bill Moray concludes my story in two lines.
This is not only my story but in today’s Era, this is the story of every second person you see around yourself. And hence the feelings of self-doubt, and procrastination begin to grow. And all this chain has caused life so worse to an extent that today people smile, just to enlighten their Instagram story or to show others they are living the best time of their life. But in reality either they are signing on their divorce papers or failing an entry test. The views increase, and each person who views this story thinks they are worthless. And this sows the seed of mental health issues like depression anxiety and whatnot.
The more social media we have, the more we think we’re connecting, yet we are really disconnecting from each other.
JR
These social media platforms are designed to kill time. There is a documentary on Netflix, “The Social Dilemma”, where the software, technical engineers, or people working in those social media offices tells the real face of these social media companies. You are a person, let’s say your name is “Lily”, you use Instagram for some days and another “Instagram Lily” is created. Everything you watch on Instagram, all the content you read or scroll, all the people you stalk. They come in your suggestion list.
And they design everything in such a way that you are bound to spend your time on the phone.
Imagine you met your new class fellow today, and you thought he/she is kind of cute. And you go to your home and scroll Instagram and see his/her suggestion on your timeline. I know you must be surprised but they are tracking your location and others’ location, and hence the people you meet come on your friend suggestion list. You search for a review of a book one day and the other day you see suggestions for more books on your timeline. You order a skin care product today and daily your feed is filled with more skin care products launching in the market. And you think it’s all a coincidence, it’s not!
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“Privacy is dead, and social media hold the smoking gun.”
Pete Cashmore
I know there are some positive aspects as well, many people started earning a living through this, many online businesses are running, and many influencers, bloggers and reviewers are able to make ends meet. But the negative outcomes are always dominant over the positive ones. Today a small kid doesn’t know his goals properly but he knows how to make transition videos from the best angle. Life has started to become more materialistic these days. People are going away from healthy activities like exercising, book reading and family values are decreasing each day.
And moreover, we see statistics, every 1 out of 5 people is depressed or suffering from anxiety issues these days. Mental health issues are increasing tremendously and insomnia is seen in the majority. People are going towards more artificial means.
Not only this we see, social values and aspects of humanity are also lowering. If an incident takes place, people are more interested in making videos and getting views instead of actually helping and this is an alarming situation.
The factors of jealousy are increasing. And in the midst of all the dilemma, it’s difficult to recognize the truth. Even if someone is telling the actual story seems fake sometimes. The recent rape case of Minar e Pakistan is the biggest example. While everybody was sympathizing with the victim, later they found that it was nothing but a publicity stunt. And situations like these make more Chios amongst each other. Not only this our mothers or father figures who are new to this technology world, start to believe every fake news they see on WhatsApp and share it with all their family groups. We can see how it’s affecting our elders too.
Apart from mental health issues if I lay emphasis on other health issues specifically related to the body.
Social Media is so addictive to such an extent that the sleep schedules are messed up and this problem is mostly seen in teenagers. This is growing age, effective and timely sleep regulates growth hormones. This is the reason we see hormonal issues increasing in children as well because good sleep means good life.
Social Media has stolen our privacy and the ability to stop, think, focus, pounder, and gratitude are vanishing. The brain always seems to be in a hyperactive state. In today’s world, it’s a grand struggle to ignore social media and work on yourself.
It takes discipline not to let social media steal your time.
Alexis Ohanian
